


"The Autocrat 






BRUCE V. CRAMDALL 







Glass -HUTU. 

Book , •- t 
Copyright^ 

COPVKIGIIT DEPOSrr. 



"The Autocrat 
at the Lunch Table 



*f 



-By BRUCE V. CRANDALL 



Rewritten and Revised, but Based 
on a Series of Articles First 
Appearing in the Railway Review 



Railway Educational Press 

Fourteen East Jackson Boulevard 
Chicago, : : : Illinois 



W^ 






Copyright 1915 
Bruce V. Crandall 
Chicago, Illinois 



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•-, *< 



M -71915 



>C!.A40125G 



FOREWORD. 

That which is written in the pages of this book, 
under a title half borrowed from Holmes' famous 
"Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" is not "made up 
out of whole cloth." It is taken in large part from 
actual conversations which have been held over 
many a different lunch table during the last year. 
In fact, some of the reported conversations have 
been written out by certain supply men, who, if 
their names were mentioned, would be recognized 
as being among the successful leaders in the busi- 
ness of manufacturing equipment and appliances 
for the railroads. Some of the theories advanced 
are held by hard headed business men. In the char- 
acters presented no one special individual has been 
in mind, and the president and others mentioned 
are purely fictitious characters. There is a possible 
exception, however, as regards the junior and senior 
vice-presidents, to whom I feel greatly indebted for 
their suggestions and encouragement in writing 
this series of lunch table talks many of which have 
appeared in the columns of the Railway Review. 
I would also like to express my appreciation for 
the many suggestions and ideas received from a 
very large number of my friends in the railway 
supply business. B. V. C. 

June First 

Nineteen Fifteen 

at Chicago 



I. 

WERE THEY DISHONEST CASTINGS 

AND WHAT IS DISHONESTY 

ANYWAY? 

Not that the lunch table of the railway supply 
man is unusual, but the fact that it is usual, and 
that the "autocrat" still lingers in the memories of 
most of us, is perhaps sufficient excuse for making 
use of the creation of Holmes which was familiar to 
the last generation and which is something that is 
also familiar to the present day generation. 

I thought of Holmes in our last discussion at the 
lunch table, and particularly of the following ex- 
pression: "I find the great thing in this world is 
not so much where we stand as in what direction 
we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we 
must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes 
against it, — but we must sail and not drift nor lie 
at anchor." 

We are generally all of us at lunch these days, 
because there is nothing in particular to call us 
away. The president was there, and the vice-presi- 
dent, and general sales manager, and our mechan- 
ical expert. I quoted the lines from Holmes before 
we ordered our lunch, but they were seemingly for- 
gotten in the strenuous effort of deciding what we 

(7) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



wanted to eat. This deciding what to eat sometimes 
presents a good deal of a problem. There are days 
when the bill of fare looks entirely wrong, and I 
just had it in mind to theorize a little on this par- 
ticular matter, wondering in my own mind just 
what made the bill of fare look so entirely different 
some days from what it did on others. Was it the 
bill of fare — was it our mental attitude, or might it 
be our physical condition ? Is it better to eat things 
toward which we feel inclined, or does the wise man 
reason the matter out logically and feed his physical 
being in a scientific manner? Is such a topic of con- 
versation at a lunch table more conducive to diges- 
tion and assimilation of food than a discussion of 
the war^between those who cannot agree? 

I wondered if Holmes, because of undue modesty, 
had felt that he was an autocrat at the breakfast 
table forty or fifty years ago, or whether he used 
that word because he felt that he was not an auto- 
crat. One is not always sure of his position, even 
after having given time and thought to the study 
of the question in hand. I did not speak of all this 
at the lunch table; I was just thinking about it 
while the general sales manager was keeping the 
waiter waiting while he made a careful selection 
from the menu card. He is always slow at the 
lunch table, exercising the greatest care in arriving 
at a decision as to what he is to eat. I have often 



(8) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

wondered if his two hundred and plus was the result 
of this deliberation and care, or whether the avoir- 
dupois was the result not of the physical but rather 
of the mental attitude of the man. 

At any rate, when he had finally given his order, 
he remarked that he thought Holmes was entirely 
right as regards the railway supply situation at the 
present time — "we must sail and not drift nor lie 
at anchor." The fact that orders are not numer- 
ous just at the present moment is no excuse for 
lack of progress with the manufacturer of railway 
supplies, because progress did not entirely indicate 
the getting and filling and shipping of orders, but 
something more than that. Right now we ought to 
be extremely busy with what he termed "missionary 
work." He did not look at the president, and went 
on with rather a lengthy dissertation on the value 
of advertising even a little more strenuously right 
now than when orders were coming with greater 
frequency. He saw a good many ways of spend- 
ing money which he felt would increase the effi- 
ciency of the sales organization and permit them to 
take advantage of better conditions when they 
came. 

I felt very much like agreeing with him and say- 
ing so, but I saw that our president was listening 
very carefully, and by virtue of the fact that he is 
president of the company, having reached that posi- 

(9) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



tion through his own efforts and not having in- 
herited the job, I felt as though I would like to hear 
his side of the story, from his viewpoint and from 
his experience. But our president is a wonderfully 
good listener. I have often wondered whether his 
listening ability was not responsible to a large ex- 
tent for the big success of the company. The man 
who does a large amount of listening learns a great 
deal from other people, and the man who does a 
large amount of talking becomes imbued with the 
fact that he knows a great deal, of course thinking 
this may prevent learning any more. I must con- 
fess that I have often felt that one's belief in one's 
own knowledge is a valuable asset, as every man 
needs to believe in himself; but, on the other hand, 
possibly it is sometimes better to believe you know 
fewer things and have that belief founded on fact. 

The president evidently would not talk; he 
would listen. I knew the vice-president would not 
say anything until we got around to automobiles, 
and the mechanical expert was strangely silent for 
a man who is ordinarily talkative, and I thought I 
knew the reason. They have been having some 
trouble on the X. Y. Z. Railway with the last ship- 
ment of our appliances, and the mechanical expert 
was only just home from that road, tired out in 
body and soul, and mentally exhausted, in an effort 
to make the right tiling fit in the wrong place — one 

(10) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

of those old stories of where we had given the rail- 
road the thing that they needed, but they had not 
applied it as it should have been applied. It would 
have been easy enough if we could have admitted 
that we were in the wrong and made a shipment 
that was right, but we were right and not wrong, 
and the other fellow was wrong; he was our cus- 
tomer, and naturally we had to handle the matter 
with a good deal of care. It is somewhat of a tick- 
lish job to explain to a man that he is in the wrong 
and has made a mistake, and at the same time make 
him feel pleased at your telling him so. 

The waiter was unusually slow, — one of those 
waiters you sometimes find who seems to have a 
faculty for getting in wrong in the kitchen, and 
after being delayed there, is painfully deliberate in 
his movements in serving. It seemed to be up to 
me to do the talking. Of course the natural thing 
to do was to talk about the war; but I hated to do 
that, and as a compromise I made the suggestion 
that war was not so different from business, — that 
business was war, and that while we did not shoot 
our competitors with machine guns or stab them 
with bayonets, we did try to starve them to death 
by keeping them from getting any orders. Still 
no remarks from the president. I could see that 
he felt that there was nothing new in such a state- 

(ii) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



ment, and was wondering if I was going at an old 
fact from a new angle. 

However, I felt that inasmuch as I was started, 
I might just as well continue. If war is business, 
and business is war — that is in principle, if not in 
detail, how is it possible that "honesty is the best 
policy" in business? Even the sales manager looked 
tired when I switched off in this direction, and I 
knew why. He is a great believer in a lot of those 
old quotations that we used to copy off when we 
practiced the Spencerian System of writing in the 
old copy books. I could just feel his attitude, and 
I started after him and gave my ideas of business 
principles right then and there. If "honesty is the 
best policy," why are we not honest with our com- 
petitors and tell them how we figure our manufac- 
turing costs, what we put in for an overhead, and 
when we put in a definite bid, why don't we tell 
them what it is? Instead of that, what do we do? 
We try to mislead them as to our shop costs, fool 
them as to our sales expenses, mislead them as to 
any quotation which we have made. Why, we go 
even further than that. We do just what is done 
in war — we send out spies. So does the other fel- 
low. Of course, we don't shoot the spy when we 
find him, but we make life just as uncomfortable 
for him as the law permits, and by hook or crook 
we get all the information we can from the other 

(12) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

fellow. "Oh, but that isn't what is meant by 'hon- 
esty is the best policy/ " I could read in the sales 
manager's face without hearing him say so. 

I have my own opinion as to "honesty being the 
best policy." It isn't always, and I proceeded to 
say so, although lunch was served just then and 
I could not do my full duty by what I had ordered 
and still keep up a running conversation to support 
my own theory. However, I told the sales man- 
ager, and called him by name when I got to talk- 
ing, and explained to him that I felt that in busi- 
ness, as in fighting, honesty was the best policy so 
far as your own side is concerned, — that I believed 
most thoroughly in honest dealings, in loyalty and 
co-operation among members of a single business 
corporation or in groups of business corporations 
which were friendly each to the other because con- 
ditions naturally made them friendly. You can- 
not run a successful business without honesty, — 
that is, without honest dealings toward your as- 
sociates and employees. However, with your com- 
petitor it is another proposition. 

"What about your customer?" queried the presi- 
dent, who had, by keeping quiet and attending to 
eating, gotten as far as a cigar. 

"Well, you remember that order from the A. 
B. C. Railway," I replied, "where they insisted on 

(13) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



having some castings that weighed thirteen pounds 
more than we thought was necessary." 

The president simply nodded, and I went on. 

"You know that we tested out those castings 
very carefully and fully satisfied ourselves that 
the castings, if made thirteen pounds lighter, would 
be more serviceable, — would be stronger, and would 
better fill the requirements than if they had on the 
extra metal. The extra metal simply constituted 
an element of weakness. We sold them the cast- 
ings according to their specifications, but events 
have justified our position that a lighter casting 
would have been more serviceable." 

"And there is a place," interrupted the sales 
manager, "where the mechanical expert might bet- 
ter have stayed at home. It took me a week to 
get those fellows on that railroad smoothed down 
to the point where they would sign an order for 
what they wanted. It is our business to give the 
buyer what he wants, and that is the basis for suc- 
cessful business." 

I looked at our mechanical expert, as I was anx- 
ious to hear what he was going to say. However, 
he said nothing, and we left the lunch table with- 
out the question decided. I said to the president 
as we walked out: "If 'honesty is the best policy,' 
should we have shipped that road dishonest cast- 
ings because that is what they wanted?" 

(14) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"Were they dishonest castings?" he asked, and 
that is a question. What is honesty anyway? Is 
it a thing absolute or relative, or is it what we 
might more property call "progressive?" Are 
things which were dishonest yesterday honest to- 
morrow — or what is the answer? 



(15) 



II. 

OPERATING A BUSINESS HAS ITS 
LIMITS AND LIMITATIONS, 

The president had been off for a trip to New 
York, the sales manager had been sitting up nights 
with the only possible order in sight, and the vice- 
president, mechanical expert, and myself had been 
going from the roof to the cellar of the plant to 
see where we could reduce operating costs when 
we had any excuse for operating. 

This explains why there hasn't been any lunch 
table for a week or so, so far as we are concerned. 
Naturally we were anxious* to learn from the presi- 
dent how everything was in New York City; how 
they are feeling down there. Somebody had told 
me a day or two before that the brokers and stock 
exchange people were clerking in the department 
stores. The man who gave me this information 
handed it out in a way to intimate that if this was 
the case, and he was sure of his facts, the country 
not only was going, but had gone "to the dogs." 
I told them what I had heard, and the president 
remarked in his terse way that while New York 
was a great financial center, it was what it was be- 
cause of the financial greatness of the nation as 
a whole. 

(16) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

The general sales manager seemed to be pretty 
sure that business was going to come back, on the 
theory that having reached the bottom of things, 
there was no further room to move in that direc- 
tion and would therefore have to move the other 
way, "But," said the vice-president, "doesn't it 
strike you that we in the railway supply business 
have not only reached the bottom, but we are sort 
of bouncing up and down on the bottom, and if 
we keep it up much longer we will be likely to 
break through?" 

This certainly was pessimism, long drawn out, 
^nd I suggested that we might tell the waiter what 
we wanted and let him hurry us a good lunch, and 
perhaps we wouldn't be so pessimistic after we had 
had something good to eat. I don't know what 
earthly reason a man has for being pessimistic when 
he is connected with a good business institution 
which has been declaring dividends for a good many 
years, and who has always been well treated, and 
knows his concern is going to go on and do busi- 
ness if anybody does, and it is a certainty that the 
end of all things has not reached us as yet. 

After we had finished the dessert and gotten as 
far as the cigars, the president said that he wanted 
to hold up on every expenditure from now until 
after the first of the year. He didn't want to 
permanently curtail expenses, but for the next cou- 

(17) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



pie of months we could be planning on what we 
might spend and see if we could not arrive at some 
way of spending less money and getting more for 
it. He remarked that he thought the wise man 
was the one who didn't mourn over conditions but 
set himself to work to adjust his business to pres- 
ent conditions and make the best of them. I felt 
myself that that was a pretty good way in which 
to look at it, and that whatever the future might 
be, there was an ever-present necessity of handling 
our business to the best possible advantage right 
now, especially in view of the uncertainty as to 
just what is in front of us for the next few months. 
Personally, I cannot help but feel, and I said so, 
that business is going to return by spring. I have 
claimed all along that if we got by October with- 
out a panic it meant that business was gradually 
to improve. We have just about reached the limit 
on the "slide down the hill," and if we haven't any 
further to go, and if we can wiggle through the 
valley without everybody getting panic-stricken, 
we are going to begin the climb of the hill toward 
better business in the immediate future. We are 
not going to get up high enough to realize that we 
are getting higher until some time next spring. 
There are a whole lot of men in the railway sup- 
ply business who are figuring and getting ready 
for orders now, with the expectation that these or- 

(18) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

ders will be realized before long. There must be 
some good reason for it, and I said to the presi- 
dent just as we left the table: 

"Don't you think that this is just about the situ- 
ation: We have reached the bottom in the railway 
supply business and are bound to go up because 
we cannot go the other way? Don't you notice 
in the papers that have been antagonistic to rail- 
roads a growing spirit of fairness in asking that 
justice be given them, and has not the pendulum 
of public opinion been swung just about as far 
as it is going to swing as regards this antagonistic 
attitude toward the railroads, and don't you feel 
that it is swinging back? Another thing: Isn't the 
general public beginning to realize very thoroughly 
that the railroads have had about all the doctoring 
and surgery that they can stand and still live? The 
average American citizen wants the railroads to 
live because he knows that it is to his own selfish 
interest, and there seems to be a very general feel- 
ing that we have gone a little bit too far in oper- 
ating upon the railroads. It is all right to take 
out a man's vermiform appendix, remove a tumor, 
saw off his legs to save him from blood poisoning, 
but we are not going to be able to take out his heart 
or stomach or cut off his head in an attempt to 
patch him up, without running some chance of 
having the patient die on our hands. It seems to 

(19) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



me that in the last few weeks the American peo- 
ple have come to a pretty full realization of the 
fact that this is just about what they have been 
attempting to do with the railroads, although we 
might grant for the sake of argument that the rail- 
roads needed a surgical operation and we went into 
it with the idea of benefiting their health and ulti- 
mately our own, and not for the purposes of vivi- 
section." 

Our president is a pretty conservative man and 
has had a long experience in the railway supply 
business. I therefore felt complimented when he 
said that he was inclined to believe that I was right 
in my viewpoint. "Only," he said, "it is a very 
difficult matter to determine just how soon the rail- 
roads and the manufacturers who supply them with 
appliances will feel the changing and changed at- 
titude of the American public towards its railroads ; 
but I feel that the change has come." 



(20) 



III. 

IT IS UP TO THE BUSINESS MAN 
AFTER ALL. 

Personally I do not approve of cigarette smok- 
ing, and I don't use them. Still that is a matter 
I have to decide for myself, and it is none of my 
business if the sales manager wants to use them, and 
he does. The other day while we were ordering 
our lunch, being minus a cigarette, and not being 
able to borrow one from any one at our table, he 
got up and circled around the room until he was 
able to secure the loan of one cigarette from an 
acquaintance. This caused the remark from the 
mechanical expert in our party that certainly the 
railway supply business was down to the last gasp 
when the sales manager found it necessary to walk 
through a public dining-room to borrow one ciga- 
rette. The good point about it was that the con- 
dition of the railway supply business was at least 
taken cheerfully and good naturedly by the party. 

I had been to a club luncheon the day before, 
where an eastern manufacturer had made a talk 
on the patent laws of this and foreign countries, 
and I was so interested in the subject that I lost 
no time in acquainting those at the table with what 
I had heard. 

(21) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



The speaker referred to had said that the Ameri- 
can manufacturer, when he secures a patent on his 
product in Europe, is compelled to manufacture 
that product in the country in which he secures 
the patent. Our patent laws in this country do 
not require the patentee to manufacture here. This 
gives foreign goods an advantage. 

In Germany the manufacturers of that country 
are organized into an association whereby, when 
an American manufacturer attempts to sell in Ger- 
many, they combine together to produce these 
goods below the cost that the American manufac- 
turer can possibly sell them. It also is a law in 
Germany that goods sold in that country must be 
labeled in German, "Made in whatever country 
they come from." This same law obtains in Eng- 
land. Goods must be labeled where they are made. 

In France, he stated, he talked with manufactur- 
ers, and they invariably do not carry their build- 
ings on their books. When he asked them why 
they did not do this they told him that the build- 
ings were built by their grandfathers, and should 
not be charged to their business — that they hadn't 
cost them anything. They charge only overhead 
and labor to the cost of goods. They also get labor 
for about half what we have to pay for it. 

Another point that he made was that foreign 
workmen are a great deal more economical than 

(22) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

American workmen. In both Germany and France 
the workmen, instead of wearing expensive cloth- 
ing, as our workmen do, sometimes even wearing a 
white collar, these foreign workmen wear a long 
tunic, which is very inexpensive. 

His most interesting statement was that the 
American manufacturer is fast coming to the same 
conditions as the railroads of this country. High 
taxes, increasing wages, our poor tariff, which af- 
fords no protection to the American manufacturer, 
and other increasing expenses, are bringing these 
conditions about. His plea was for an awaken- 
ing of the business men, to take part in the elec- 
tion of business men to Legislature and Congress, 
and to see that laws are framed by men who un- 
derstand manufacturing and business conditions 
better than do the present politicians and lawyers 
who constitute the lawmakers. 

When I had gotten this far, and was talking 
about business men for Congress I was interrupted 
by the vice-president, and patent laws were forgot- 
ten. (When it comes down to anything like this 
our vice-president can forget lunch and forget to 
eat it; in fact, get into about the same condition 
that Ulysses described in the Odyssey, when he told 
of Land of Lotus Eaters — how people going 
there forgot home and friends and country. So 
was our vice-president. It was no use — any at- 

(23) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



tempt to make him eat was in vain. The position 
he took, to the best of my recollection, was about 
as follows : He said that the time had come when 
business men — real business men — should take hold 
of legislative matters in earnest. He thought there 
were very few "Lotus Eaters" in Congress at pres- 
ent — that most congressmen never forgot home and 
friends, particularly their "voting" friends, whom 
they keep so constantly in mind, that they devote 
comparatively little time to economic thought and 
study bearing upon those legislative problems for 
the solution of which they were (supposedly) sent 
to Congress. 

He believes that most business men feel a very 
genuine interest in sound, constructive legislation, 
and would welcome the appearance of business men 
of experience in Congress, especially as members 
of the House of Representatives; but that, as in- 
dividuals, business men are rarely moved to take 
the initiative in such directions, and probably never 
will be to any material extent, until the business 
world, as such, is aroused to the point of action 
toward this desirable end. 

The president interrupted him to say that he 
for one was pretty nearty "aroused to the point 
of action toward" almost anything that would give 
an honest man a chance to earn a living. 

The president went on to say that only through 

(24) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

concerted action, and with the strong, open sup- 
port of an organization comprising the general 
business interests of the country, could such a 
thing be accomplished. To that end, he referred 
to the various chambers of commerce and trade bod- 
ies of the United States who now carry their ac- 
tivities to the threshold of Congress, and perti- 
nently asked: Why not within Congress? Natur- 
ally, there seemed to be so many complications, so 
many difficulties to be overcome, that I asked him 
a number of questions, to which he had ready an- 
swers. But at this juncture, and despite of the busi- 
ness depression, he claimed to have a business en- 
gagement, so our little party dispersed with the 
understanding that we would renew the discussion 
at our next luncheon together. 

He lingered long enough, however, to say that 
if socialism is to be controlled, if sanity and wis- 
dom are to characterize legislation affecting busi- 
ness, and our industrial and commercial structure 
is not to suffer further serious impairment, then 
it is squarely up to the business men of the coun- 
try to so determine. 

And the more I think about it the more I think 
our vice-president is right. And then the more 
I think he is right the more I think he is the right 
man to go to Congress. And if the time ever comes 
when we send representatives to Congress in the 

(25) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



true sense of the word "representative," we are go- 
ing to send a man of his type. 
Let's do it — why not? 



(26) 



IV. 

SELLING CHEAPER APPLIANCES 

AND SELLING APPLIANCES 

CHEAPER. 

"Sausage and buckwheat cakes and hot mince 
pie for me," said the sales manager as he came 
in late and sat down at the table. 

"Rainy weather doesn't seem to agree with you," 
I remarked, "or are you going around to see some- 
body this afternoon and getting up courage by that 
kind of a lunch?" 

"Getting up courage?" he remarked, "I am try- 
ing to get my courage back. Say," and he turned 
to the mechanical expert, "what is the actual cost 
to us, I mean without any frills tacked on to it, of 
building our No. 8 machine?" 

The mechanical expert got out his little note 
book, and on the back of an envelope began figur- 
ing. 

"$73.18," he said after a minute. 

"Does that include overhead and sales expense?" 
asked the president. 

"It includes an overhead, but no sales expense," 
was the reply. 

"Well, then, that is not the cost. We have to 
employ salesmen in order to sell our product, and 

(27) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



we must put on the sales expense, as it is just as 
much a part of the actual cost as the material." 

"Well, never mind," said the sales manager, "I 

just saw B of the Railway, and he says 

he has figured out the actual cost of our No. 8 ma- 
chine and it amounts to about $65.00." 

"That is what it amounts to on paper," remarked 
the vice-president, "but we have been making those 
machines for twenty-four years and we ought to 
know by this time what the actual cost of them 
amounts to." 

"Well, what am I going to do about it?" said 
the sales manager. "We can sell that machine for 
$65.00 or we can pass up the business." 

"Well," said the mechanical expert, "we will 
build a machine that looks like that one, and that 
apparently will do the same work, and it won't 
cost us over $55.00, overhead, interest on invest- 
ment, sales expense, and dividends, all added in. 
It will do the work for several years, — with some 
repairs occasionally. Then, at the end of ten years, 
the repair expense, I should judge, will be about 
forty dollars more than our No. 8 machine, which, 
with reasonable usage, requires no repairs in ten 
years." 

"The very rigid economies which are now being 
practiced by the railroad companies," I remarked, 
"have undoubtedly been the cause for the very sub- 

(28) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

stantial reductions in operating and maintenance 
costs of the railroads. Such policies pursued by 
purchasing agents have undoubtedly been the 
means of bettering financial statements. This is a 
temporary benefit, but I believe we will have to 
pay the price for such temporizing later on. Of 
course, from one way of looking at it, the careful 
investigation of prices has undoubtedly resulted to 
the benefit of the railroad companies, but this bene- 
fit has not been an unmixed good. There is this 
in connection with the matter, however, that there 
is a danger that with this wave of low-price buy- 
ing there may be an aftermath of inferior quality 
of goods supplied." 

"Now our 'autocrat' is talking about the $55.00 
machine that our mechanical expert has figured 
out," remarked the sales manager. 

"Men are only human," I went on, "and there 
is a no more human lot of men than railway supply 
manufacturers, and when a railway supply man 
has his prices cut and cut — and cut still more, there 
is manifestly a temptation in it all for the cutting 
of the quality of what he manufactures. I know 
that so far as our own company is concerned, we 
have maintained prices, except in special instances 
where we have offered a secondary appliance, mak- 
ing it clear that it was a secondary appliance, so 
probably the principle as above stated does not ap- 

(29) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



ply to us. That is, — we have sold cheaper ap- 
pliances, but we have not sold appliances cheaper. 
Be that as it may it is my very firm conviction that 
the future is going to show that a lot of articles that 
are being purchased today simply on the basis of 
price are not going to stand the hard service to 
which they are being applied, and there is a grow- 
ing danger, and a very real one, in that different 
articles for railway service are being purchased 
merely on a price basis. It is far better for the 
railroads to pay a somewhat higher price if they 
are going to get a considerably longer service out of 
that which they buy." 

"Well," said the sales manager, "put yourself 
in the place of the purchasing agent of a railroad. 
Perhaps he would like to buy a better article, and 
undoubtedly the far-sighted purchasing agent 
would. He appreciates the fact that the actual 
cost of the article is not in its first cost, but to that 
must be added a maintenance cost, and the length 
of time the appliance will stay in service. But the 
railroads today are not exactly in the position 
where they can do as they please or as they might 
think was best in the long run. Their incomes are 
limited by law, and they simply have to cut their 
cloth to fit. They are in a situation where they 
cannot borrow money to any extent, and they have 
got to get along on a "hand to mouth" policy. Un- 

(30) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

doubtedly it is a more expensive one, but what are 
they going to do ? A man pays more for coal when 
he buys it by the bushel than when he buys it by 
the ton or in ten-ton lots; but if he has not the 
money or the credit to buy the ton, he is going to 
buy a bushel at a time. He knows it is costing 
him more, but his limited financial condition pre- 
vents his doing differently." 

"That is all very true," I replied, "but the rail- 
roads are not only buying cheaper articles, but they 
are hammering the railway supply man insistently 
and persistently to buy everything cheaper. We 
Americans are very apt to be extremists, and the 
pendulum is liable to swing as far as possible one 
way, and then again equally far in the opposite di- 
rection. Is it not possible that just at the present 
time the order to the lowest priced fellow is just as 
far from the proper basis of buying as it used to be 
on the other end of the line ? I would not advocate 
for a moment that the railroads should pay more 
for their goods than they ought, but I would advo- 
cate, and that most strongly, that it is of paramount 
interest to the railroads to obtain a proper quality 
of goods, and at a reasonable price. This continual 
hammering and hammering on price is going to 
react on the railroads of this country, because they 
cannot indefinitely expect to obtain first class ma- 
terial or appliances from railway supply manufac- 

(31) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



turers when they cut them down to a lower than 
producing or living basis." 

"This is a big subject," remarked the vice-presi- 
dent, "and I would hate to get through it in one 
luncheon. I have to be back at the office at two 
o'clock and I am going to skip. But, in this con- 
nection, there is one point which might be men- 
tioned, but which, of course, is rather a delicate 
thing to discuss, and that is that there is a natural 
rivalry between the purchasing department and the 
mechanical or engineering department. The pur- 
chasing department's first aim is to make a good 
showing based on the low cost of purchases, while 
the mechanical or engineering department natur- 
ally want something that is going to make a good 
record so far as maintenance cost is concerned. 
Then the operating department comes in. They 
want something that is going to help them get the 
trains over the road. Poor material and inferior 
appliances are directly responsible for the biggest 
item of expense in railroading, — delay to traffic. 
The operating department fully appreciates this, 
and while they want to see the purchasing depart- 
ment save money in buying and the mechanical or 
engineering department keep down the mainte- 
nance cost, all of these savings are rather insig- 
nificant, as the operating man knows, when it comes 

(32) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

to comparing them with that very real cost to the 
railroads, viz: that of having the traffic delayed." 

"Yes, and I'll tell you one thing more ," broke 
in the sales manager, "railroad men shift around 
a good deal. They know that they may be in a 
position for only a few years. They are making 
a record for themselves, or attempting to, the same 
as any other man. They know that only the im- 
mediate results of their action will be counted for 
or against them. There is a big temptation then 
to buy everything at the lowest first cost, as that 
shows apparent economy at once. The final cost 
may not be determined until after they have left 
that road, or even retired from railroading. It 
takes a pretty big man to spend fifty thousand dol- 
lars for a lot of cars that he can get for forty-six 
thousand dollars, even if the forty-six thousand 
dollar cars cost a great deal more to maintain — in 
fact, as much more as to make the entire mainte- 
nance cost of these cars fifty thousand dollars. 
There is a fairly good chance that he may not be 
on that road when the maintenance costs begin to 
pile up. Any way, he has made a record for econ- 
omy. He has saved four thousand dollars, and that 
is an item that he can always point to as having 
been saved." 

As the vice-president got up to leave, he said: 
"Well, personally, I think you will find in the best 

(33) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



managed railway systems a disposition on the part 
of the purchasing, maintenance and operating de- 
partments to co-operate intelligently, to the end of 
good service — a sound policy, and one most en- 
couraging to the manufacturer of a conscientiously 
made product, selling at a live and let live price. 

"It is true that there is today a greater tempta- 
tion than ever to consider first cost, just as the sales 
manager suggests but I am sure he will agree with 
me that 'honest goods at an honest price' is the 
only policy for a company like ours which has not 
only made its reputation on this basis, but is today 
holding the best business in the country (such as 
it is) by sticking to this method. 

"I can easily appreciate the woes of a salesman 
who loses business to 'the other fellow with a lower 
price;' but if I were to return to the selling field 
myself, I would far rather stake my chances of 
success with a concern making demonstrated and 
recognized high standard goods, and getting a fair 
price for them, than to handle the product of a 
concern that would allow me all the rope needed 
to capture trade on the price basis only. 

"In the latter instance I should feel like a man 
without even one good leg to stand on — there is 
always some fellow who will lower the lowest price. 
But if you handle an article of known and recog- 
nized merit, your energies and gray matter will be 

(34) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

well spent in building up a business that you can 
hold — with goods for which you never have to apol- 
ogize — with goods that will repeat. 

"Exorbitant prices are just as unwise as they are 
impossible. No real business man wants them, for 
he knows that he cannot long sustain them. But 
the man who prostitutes high standards to meet 
the prices of inferior goods or appliances is not only 
doing himself and his business an injustice, but he 
is also practicing an imposition upon his custom- 
ers — customers whom, through long years of honest 
effort, he has taught to trust him and his products. 

"I cannot imagine a field where this is of greater 
importance than in ours. We should remember 
that we are selling that on which depend safety 
and service." 



(35) 



WHEN WE HAVE BEEN PUTTING THE 
EMPHASIS ON THE WRONG THINGS. 

"Business is better sentimentally." 

"What do you mean by that?" asked the vice- 
president. 

"Well, I should say that coming events cast their 
shadows before them," I replied. "You know our 
financial ups and downs are very largely a matter 
of sentiment anyway. When we do business on 
credit, and most of the business is done on credit, 
we are doing it on faith. It is what we think and 
believe, in a word, a matter of sentiment." 

"That all sounds well enough," said the vice- 
president, "but sentiment does not bring in the or- 
ders." 

"No," I replied, "but sentiment is simply the 
shadow, and not a black and gloomy shadow, that 
is cast by the orders that are coming. You know 
as well as I do that if people are feeling all right 
they are willing to discount the future. It is not 
actual trouble that disturbs us as much as trouble 
which is anticipated. It isn't the certainty that 
bothers us but the uncertainty. Now if we are ab- 
solutely sure that for the next six months there 
would be no orders for the railway supply frater- 

(36) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

nity, everybody could prepare for it and we would 
get along, I wouldn't say comfortably, but we 
would get along." 

"I can tell you one thing," said the sales man- 
ager, "there is not only a better feeling, but I have 
been talking with several railroad men who tell me 
just what they are going to do and that there is 
going to be a loosening up of business, and that 
almost immediately." 

"All very well," said the vice-president; "senti- 
ment is better, and we have promises that we are 
going to have some business, but I want to see the 
orders." 

"Oh, well," remarked the mechanical expert, "if 
you are going to be so particular as that you are go- 
ing to insist on having cash with the orders." 

Discussion stopped at that point because primar- 
ily we were at the lunch table for the purpose of 
eating. Someone has said it is very poor policy 
to talk business at the table. It interferes with 
one's digestion. But if the talking stopped at a 
certain lunch table that I know of there wouldn't 
be any more material for "The Autocrat at the 
Lunch Table." 

"It all simmers down to this," said the vice-presi- 
dent, after he had ordered a club sandwich in his 
delicate way. "Of course business is coming back 
again eventually, and we are going to get our share 

(37) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



of it, and I don't see that a discussion as to when 
it is coming back is going to be of any great help 
to us." 

"But when it does come back it will be a help 
to us/' I remarked, "and furthermore, its coming 
is going to herald an era of business prosperity 
for this country such as never has been known in 
its history, but the business man has got to bestir 
himself and the people of this country have got to 
be educated. They must know that the happiness 
of the individuals of this country is just as depen- 
dent upon the prosperity of business as it is upon 
good crops. A few hundred years ago the happi- 
ness of the average individual, or most individuals, 
was not dependent to so large an extent upon the 
prosperity of business. Business in those days was 
more agricultural than almost anything else and 
the individual man, with a few acres of ground, 
could take care of himself, whatever business con- 
ditions might happen to be. 

"It is entirely different since the advent of the 
railroads and the building of big business. Mil- 
lions of people are absolutely dependent upon the 
prosperity of the railroads. For instance, what 
would our big cities do if the railroads decided that 
inasmuch as they couldn't make money enough to 
run their railroads, they would stop running them? 
Absolute starvation, not for thousands, but for mil- 

(38) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

lions of people. The railroads must have a chance 
to be prosperous because their prosperity is the 
people's prosperity. Men are not living alone and 
unto themselves in these days. They are of neces- 
sity co-operating, each with the other — they are 
dependent one upon the other. 

"The last few years have been a transition pe- 
riod. We have had to adjust ourselves to changed 
circumstances and until this adjustment is more 
nearly completed than it is at present, there are 
bound to be these ups and downs. Ten years ago, 
if you talked to the 'man on the street' you would 
find that his sympathies were not with the railroads. 
Talk with him today and you will find that his at- 
titude is entirely different. He has come to ap- 
preciate the facts in the case as regards our trans- 
portation systems. 

"Now our law making bodies simply reflect the 
public opinion and state and national legislatures 
have been piling law upon law because they think 
that it pleases the voters. We are going to have 
some of these laws repealed and some of them modi- 
fied, and why? — because public opinion has changed 
— because the public is becoming better educated." 

"Do you know," said the sales manager, "when 
I go to a railroad I don't simply talk to the presi- 
dent, or the general manager, or even the super- 
intendent of motive power, about what we have. I 

(39) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



go from the top right down to the bottom. I see 
to it that every man on that railroad, that has 
anything to do with the use of our appliances, un- 
derstands them. I believe thoroughly in the edu- 
cation of the men on the railroads, so that they 
may not only purchase, but use our appliances in- 
telligently. It seems to me as though the railroads 
had not been following this policy. They go to 
those higher up — the men in congress, or in the 
legislatures in the states — and tell them what they 
need and what they ought to have, neglecting the 
rank and file, and while they have nothing to say di- 
rectly, they have a tremendously big say indirectly. 
Isn't it time for the railroads to go to the people?" 
"As a matter of fact," interrupted the vice-presi- 
dent, "isn't it just as important for our children to 
learn about the railroads of this country, as it is 
to learn of where the rivers are located and what 
are the state boundaries, and what kind of crops 
or fruit are grown in certain sections? The chil- 
dren in the grammar school grades and high school, 
and further on when they get to college, are taught 
history, geography, mathematics, astronomy, chem- 
istry, and a thousand and one other things, but the 
railroads, which are the very life of the country 
in which we live — the arteries of the body politic — 
they learn nothing of. I do not think our educa- 
tors as yet have fully awakened to the fact that our 

(40) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

educational methods have not kept up with our 
business growth. It is of very little value to me 
as a citizen that I learned the boundaries of the 
state of Connecticut, when I was a small boy, but 
I would be a seemingly better citizen if I had 
learned the rights of bankers, big manufacturers 
and railroads," 

"We have been putting the emphasis on the 
wrong things," I remarked, "but evolution is only 
a very slow, and I regret to say, a very painful 
process, and the way to a man's intelligence per- 
haps is through his pocketbook, and out of these 
depressions in business and the consequent priva- 
tion to the many, will come a better understanding 
of the fact that all business must have an oppor- 
tunity for growth and development, and that when 
business is not rightly treated, the wrong treatment 
is liable to act as a boomerang on those primarily 
and fundamentally responsible. 



(41) 



VI. 

WHAT TO DO WHEN THERE IS 
NOTHING TO DO. 

The fire engines always go by on the street where 
we have our luncheons, and the other noon quite a 
representation of the city fire department passed 
by the window where our table was located. After 
I had given the vice-president an opportunity to 
order his usual club sandwich and English break- 
fast tea, and to say that he didn't care for any des- 
sert, I asked whether he thought the fire depart- 
ment and the railway supply business had anything 
in common. He replied most promptly that he 
thought they had, — that it was an every-day oc- 
currence for the men in the fire department to wit- 
ness financial losses, and in that regard he didn't 
think they were so very different from those in the 
railway supply business. 

"That's a nice pessimistic view to take of it, isn't 
it?" remarked the mechanical expert. "You have 
lived long enough so that you ought to remember 
that we have had some good times in our business, 
and the chances are that in some far off golden 
day we are going to have some more good times." 

"There's one thing about the mechanical expert," 
said the president quietly, "and that is that when 

(42) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

the ship has gone down and most of the crew has 
been lost, he still feels optimistic because the piece 
of wreckage to which he is clinging is large enough 
so that he can climb upon it and not have his legs 
bitten off by a shark." 

"That certainly is refreshing," said the sales man- 
ager. "I feel now that I have instructions, implied 
at least, from the president. 

"You may get those instructions," said the vice- 
president, "and they may not be implied, but direct, 
and we may not find it a desirable business proced- 
ure to send you a salary check at the end of each 
week for playing golf." 

"Evidently you went down with the ship," said 
the sales manager. 

"No, I think the president is the man who went 
down with the ship," said the vice-president. "He 
is the captain and the conventional thing for him 
to do would be to stand on the deck and die at the 
post of duty." 

This provoked rather a grim smile from the pres- 
ident, and I don't know whether he just liked the 
reference made directly to him. Anyway he turned 
the conversation back into its original channel by 
asking me just what I had in mind when I put the 
conundrum as to why the railway supply business 
was like the fire department. 

"Did I put it just that way?" I asked him. "It 

(43) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



isn't exactly like the fire department, but the two 
are similar. Business comes to railway supply con- 
cerns with about the regularity that fire alarms 
reach the fire department. Thus far we can com- 
pare the two. It has been my observation that the 
fire department is generally ready for business, and 
without casting any slurs on the railway supply 
fraternity, I venture to say that it will be some- 
thing less than a thousand years from now when 
they will absolutely be swamped with business, be- 
hind on their orders, and in no wise able to cope 
with the situation. The fire department going by 
just now made me think of what a friend of mine 
told me this morning in regard to a certain railway 
supply concern. He said that never before in their 
history have they been so busy in their sales de- 
partment as during the past summer and fall." 

"What doing?" asked the mechanical expert. 
"Are the salesmen thinking up something so as to 
hold their jobs?" 

"No indeed. The president of the company gave 
orders to his sales department that they should get 
out and travel, — call on every railroad man from 
top to bottom; find out just what his needs and re- 
quirements are going to be in the future; just what 
kind of rolling stock they are using; and when they 
do order, what type of car they will buy. They 
were instructed to get blueprints of such cars and 

(44) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

all information which they possibly could get. The 
salesmen for this particular concern did do this, and 
they are doing it, and this particular company em- 
ployed more men last summer in their drafting 
room than ever before in their twenty years of busi- 
ness. They took these blueprints of the cars as 
they came in from the salesmen, made up draw- 
ings to show just how their various specialties could 
be applied to these different cars. They have com- 
pleted these drawings in every detail as fast as 
possible, made a number of blueprints from each of 
them, have them all indexed ready to be used at a 
moment's notice. I want to tell you that when the 
fire alarm bell of good business rings in the office of 
that particular railway supply company, they are 
going to be the first fellows to the fire. In other 
words, the first railroad that is in the market for 
some freight cars is going to get attention and defi- 
nite information from that railway supply concern 
immediately. They are going to have a salesman 
on the job, who is going to have a blueprint of the 
car on which they probably will ask bids, and he 
is going to show that railroad within twenty-four 
hours from the time that he receives the inquiry 
just what can be done with their specialties and how 
they can be used, and if the work of their sales de- 
partment is any indication of what they have done 
in their plant, they are going to take care of the 

(45) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



orders just as quickly as they took care of the in- 
quiry, and I am going to take it for granted that 
they are going to get the orders." 

The president said nothing; the vice-president 
made no remarks; the sales manager had nothing 
to say; the mechanical expert remarked as the fire 
engines trailed back past our window that evidently 
it was false alarm. 

"But not every signal to the fire engine house 
is a false alarm, and we are going to get something 
besides sentimental talk in regard to business. We 
don't know any more when it is coming than the 
fire department know when they are going to get 
the next fire." 

As we walked out of the dining room the sales 
manager said to me: "Who are you driving at 
anyway? Don't you think the 'old man's' policy is 
right? Don't you think the vice-president has got 
our plant in good shape? Or are you taking a fall 
out of me?" 

As a matter of fact, I was not criticising any- 
body, but was just making a statement as to what 
one railway supply concern had been doing the last 
six months when there had been no business, and I 
think that they are doing the wise thing. 



(46) 



VII. 

THE EFFICIENCY OF THE EMPLOYEE 
OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

The sales manager did all the talking the other 
day. In fact, he said so much that it was almost 
impossible for the waiter to get an intelligent idea 
of what we were ordering. 

"No, I haven't been doing any Christmas shop- 
ping," he replied, in answer to a question from the 
vice-president. "I have simply been over to the 
post office trying to obtain a 2-cent postage stamp, 
and if the average government employee isn't the 
most narrow-minded, unaccommodating, don't- 
care-what-happens-to-the-other-fellow sort of a 
person that there is in existence, then I will eat 
my " 

"You better make it lunch," said the vice-presi- 
dent. "No need of getting excited over a little mat- 
ter like a government employee. We have to have 
them." 

"And it looks as if we might have more of them," 
remarked the mechanical expert. "There seems to 
be a tendency toward the government employee 
just at present." 

"If we keep on," said the president, "it will be 
all employees and no one doing anything else." 

(47) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



"Do you remember in one of the stories of Oz?" 
I asked. 

"That's a children's story, isn't it?" said the sales 
manager. 

"It is," I said with becoming dignity, "and I 
thought I would take my illustration from a chil- 
dren's story, so that you might more easily com- 
prehend the point which I am trying to make." 

"There you go, hitting a fellow when he's down. 
You know that I have only just escaped from the 
hands of an employee of the post office, and in no 
condition to make a fitting reply to that last remark 
of yours." 

"To resume, in one of the stories of Oz it tells 
of the army of Oz. The army consisted of 26 sold- 
iers, 25 generals and one private. Of course, it is 
only a story for children, and, of course, the peo- 
ple of Oz were very simple people. Perhaps they 
didn't know the difference. But I am wondering 
where the author got his idea. Possibly in the con- 
stantly increasing number of government em- 
ployees to tell the people who make the government 
just what to do." 

"It is a well recognized fact," said the president, 
"that so far as this country is concerned, a govern- 
ment job has a very narrowing influence upon the 
employee of the government. He necessarily loses 
what little initiative he may happen to have been 

(48) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

possessed with originally, and naturally his origi- 
nality is not exercised, and he soon loses that. His 
job is secure; he realizes that he is working for a 
boss who has no competition." 

"There," said the mechanical expert, "now you 
have hit it. No competition. Possibly the heads of 
our government see what happens to the individual 
when competition is wiped out, and that is why our 
government is now trying to encourage competi- 
tion." 

"They are doing it," I said, "by precept, how- 
ever, and not by example. That is the way they 
do a good many other things. They are teaching 
the railroads how to be good, by precept. What 
is the example set the railroads when the govern- 
ment compels them to take care of a big increase 
in mails because of the parcel post? 

"That reminds me of what happened the other 
day," I said. "I drove in to the office and while 
I was waiting at a crossing for the go-ahead signal, 
a police patrol wagon was standing right behind 
me and that was also waiting. However, by way 
of diversion, or to see if his engine was still run- 
ning, or just because he was a "government" em- 
ployee, the officer driving the patrol wagon let in 
his clutch and edged up a few inches further, and 
smashed in my rear fender. I took the matter up 
with the chief of police by letter; explained the 

(49) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



circumstances to him, gave him the automobile li- 
cense number of the patrol wagon, and asked him 
if the police department, or the city, could do any- 
thing in regard to it. It only cost me about five 
dollars to have the fender fixed, and I had five dol- 
lars worth of good out of the letter which I re- 
ceived from the police department. My letter was 
acknowledged, brief reference made to the accident, 
and one further statement was made, and that was 
that neither the city nor the police department were 
responsible. Of course, they meant to imply that 
they were not responsible for that particular acci- 
dent, but what they did say was that they were not 
responsible, with which statement I concurred most 
heartily. It may be that we will come to a govern- 
ment ownership some day which shall include the 
railroads, but if railroad employees become govern- 
ment employees of the average kind, we will have 
our railroads mobbed." 

"It is a strange thing," said the vice-president, 
about the time he was finishing up his apple pie, 
"how many things you can discuss at a lunch table 
and how easily very important matters may be dis- 
posed of, especially if they concern something over 
which we have no control." 

"Well, if we have no control over our own gov- 
ernment," remarked the president, "I do not see 
but what democracy is a failure. After all it has 

(50) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

only been a comparatively short time that we have 
been trying to govern ourselves, and I suppose it is 
going to take some little time before we learn how 
to do it." 

"Meanwhile," said the sales manager, "it is in- 
terfering very decidedly with the efforts of the sales 
department." 



(51) 



VIII. 

THE THINGS SIMILAR IN WAR AND 
IN BUSINESS. 

We all went into town the other day and lunched 
at the club. I happened to be there a little bit 
early and got a table, and was handed the daily 
paper along with the bill-of-fare. Of course, the 
daily paper was mostly war news. It seems as 
though we get enough of this without getting it at 
lunch time. I don't suppose the other members of 
the club would tolerate for a moment the idea of 
not having the daily papers in the club at lunch 
time, but really it would be something of a relief. 
There is probably no one subject that has ever been 
as much discussed in this country as the present 
war. Books, magazines, periodicals and daily pa- 
pers keep bringing to our attention the latest news, 
the latest analysis and the latest guess of what the 
future has in store. 

The vice-president was the next one at the table 
and I told him my ideas of getting rid of the daily 
paper, and particularly the war news, so as to 
give us a chance to eat our luncheon in peace and 
quiet. 

"Well," he remarked, "there seems to be a reac- 
tion setting in and men and women in this coun- 

(52) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

try today are beginning to talk more about matters 
of usual and normal interest ; discussing things that 
pertain more particularly to our own country." 

"Undoubtedly this is a good thing," I remarked, 
"not that we want to diminish our interest in those 
of our fellowmen who are suffering so cruelly 
abroad, not that we want to do any less in the mat- 
ter of helping by donations and otherwise, but I 
believe very strongly that the time has come when 
we ought to focus our eyes on the United States, 
rather than keep looking at the foreign shores. It 
is an acknowledged and proven fact that the mind 
has considerable influence over matter and that our 
mental conditions have a good deal to do with our 
physical feelings. This is but an additional argu- 
ment for us to busy and occupy ourselves with the 
duties of our everyday business and home life, 
rather than to continually dwell on the horrors that 
are taking place across the water. Be this as it 
may, however, there is a similarity between condi- 
tions in this country and conditions abroad, which 
seems to me to be worthy of attention, especially 
at this time." 

"How are the conditions similar?" asked the me- 
chanical expert, who had come in just as I was 
beginning to give my ideas. 

"Well," I replied, "if I read the war news in- 
telligently, and if I understand at all the spirit of 

(53) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



the German people, it is that they base their ac- 
tion on the fundamental principle of the survival of 
the fittest and the fact that they, as a nation, are 
entitled to win supremacy in the commercial lines, 
even if this conquest be at the cost of other na- 
tions' blood and existence." 

"But the Germans are not going to win," broke 
in the sales manager, who had just sat down and 
had gotten enough of the drift of the conversation 
to suppose that we were talking war. 

"Oh, we are not talking war," I said to the sales 
manager, "and we are not going to. I was just 
saying that conditions surrounding the war in Eu- 
rope are similar to conditions surrounding business 
in this country. 

"As I think of modern competition in this coun- 
try and of the methods that so many business houses 
are using with reference one to the other, I am won- 
dering whether we are not having in this country 
a commercial war which is based on the same prin- 
ciples as the war abroad. Are not attempts being 
made to exterminate one's competitor, to drive that 
competitor out of business or to the wall and to be- 
come supreme at no matter what cost? Is not the 
parallel and chief underlying motive of the Ger- 
man military powers very similar to the underly- 
ing powers of many of our own business men? Has 

(54) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

not modern competition in this country become a 
sort of warfare? 

"To be sure different weapons are used and there 
is no reddening of the ground with the blood of our 
opponents, but is there not a strong tendency in 
our midst to allow this unbridled competition to 
run to its full length, irrespective of what the re- 
sults may be ? In other words, is not free and open 
competition today in the business world of the 
United States leading very largely to the same 
methods that are now being employed in those 
countries now at war? 

"The more I think about the matter the more 
does the parallel seem to be true. If it is true, if 
the conditions as outlined are actually existing to- 
day, does it not become us as a great and civilized 
nation to study the question so as to eliminate such 
principles and conditions? 

"Every effect has a cause and if the conditions 
which we have been discussing do exist are we not 
justified in stating that the cause is the fostering 
and favoring of free and unbridled competition? 
You probably can see the results that I reach, 
namely: that I think the time has come when the 
United States as a nation and the United States 
government should begin to take action to put an 
end to this unbridled and cruel competition and 
begin to take steps to allow manufacturers to make 

(55) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



a reasonable profit and not to be told that free and 
open competition will bring about the proper ad- 
justment and desired results. 

"If the contests of nations lead to desolation and 
destruction why can you expect the same methods 
in the modern business world to lead to different 
results? I am not favoring the allowing and 
growth of gigantic trusts and monopolies, but I 
do feel that some means ought to be provided, some 
means ought to be devised by and under which this 
killing and competitive fight should be arrested. 
Are there not brains in this country sufficiently able 
and wise to work out the problem and devise some 
means whereby concerns who desire and are able 
to do an honorable business shall not be forced to 
cut their prices to such an extent that either they 
or their competitors are driven to the wall? Is it 
possible to limit in any way the number of con- 
cerns engaging in any one industry or regulating 
the concerns so engaged that they will not be put 
in a position to dominate and to oppress the con- 
sumer?" 

"Are you not tackling a pretty big subject just 
for one luncheon?" remarked the president. 

"Possibly I am, but there isn't any question 
about the truth of the situation. Intelligent co- 
operation we certainly ought to have in a way that 
should bring the greatest good to the greatest num- 

(56) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

ber. Personally I think that the trusts have done 
one mighty good thing in that they have brought 
about a lessening of economic waste. I am willing 
to admit for the sake of the argument that the 
trusts have taken too great a profit in doing this, 
but why hamper and destroy the trusts, which are 
working along the right lines, when very obviously 
the better thing would be to insist upon the proper 
conduct of the trusts?" 



(57) 



IX. 

WE ARE IN BUSINESS TO MAKE A 

PROFIT AND NOT SIMPLY GO 

THROUGH THE MOTIONS 

OF MAKING A PROFIT. 

I was alone with our vice-president at lunch the 
otherday. Everyone else was busy doing Christ- 
mas shopping. I always like to have an oppor- 
tunity of lunching alone with our vice-president. 
His experience in the railway supply business has 
extended over so many years and he has been so 
careful an observer and such a reasonable and ra- 
tional "thinker, that if he has anything to say I 
always feel that if I disagree- with him that I am 
in the wrong, and he sends me away again to 
straighten myself out. I remarked to him when 
we sat down at lunch together, that there is cer- 
tainly a different atmosphere pervading everything 
at Christmas time. He said he had often thought 
about that and that if the Christmas spirit would 
only be carried on, even for a few months after 
each 25th day of December, that it would soon be 
pervading the business world throughout the en- 
tire year, that it would change all of our business 
ideas; revolutionize many of our business methods 

(58) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

and would all work out for the greatest good to the 
greatest number. 

I asked him if he did not think that the fact that 
Christmas came at the end of the calendar year 
had something to do with it, especially as regarded 
business. He said he certainly thought it did and 
w r ent on specifically to state that when business is 
booming and when the main trouble of a general 
manager is to manufacture and deliver goods rather 
than obtain orders the question of overhead expense 
seemingly is not as important as in times of depres- 
sion. It is under the latter condition that the best 
efforts of executive management are and should 
be directed to the reduction of the impersonal at the 
same time most distressing factor in business, 
namely: the overhead expense. 

"Is it not matters of this kind that come more 
to our attention at the end of the year?" I put this 
question to him in the way of a reply to his state- 
ment. Pushing his chair back into a comfortable 
position, our vice-president talked to me quite at 
length on this question of overhead expense, and 
as near as I can remember it, this is about what he 
said: 

"Much has been said and much has been written 
regarding this matter of overhead. The ultimate 
purpose being, of course, to reduce the final cost of 
the articles produced. It is axiomatic that the cost 

(59) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



of an article is made up of three things, first: raw 
material used, second: productive labor employed, 
third: overhead expense. Profit does not begin 
until these three items have been taken care of. 
Putting this statement in the form of an equation it 
would read: material plus productive labor plus 
overhead expense equals cost. It follows that the 
cost is going to vary exactly as the three factors 
vary on the other side of the equation. If a manu- 
facturer has to pay more for his material, his costs 
go up, if there is an advance in labor costs go up, 
if his overhead is increased costs go up. 

"There is one phase of this matter, however, that 
it seems to me has not been brought out possibly as 
clearly* as it might be and which can be illustrated 
by the use of the above equation — it is — that with 
decreased business, which decreases the amount of 
raw material and productive labor, the overhead 
when figured as a percentage, as is usually the 
case, increases with the result that in many cases 
it will be found that the ultimate cost of an article 
is not reduced, although the material and labor 
entering into the construction of it have been 
decreased on account of the fact that the overhead, 
being now spread over a smaller amount, is much 
increased from the standpoint of percentages." 

Here he stopped for a moment and said, "Let 
me illustrate this by the equation referred to. Raw 

(60) 






AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

material 100 plus productive labor 100 plus over- 
head 100 equals cost 300. We assume this is the 
true percentage for all normal conditions. Now 
let us decrease our sales one-half and see what we 
find. We will then have raw material 50 plus pro- 
ductive labor 50 plus overhead 200 equals cost 300. 
In other words, while you may either pay less for 
your goods or use less material and while you may 
pay less for your labor or use less labor the irre- 
ducible minimum of your overhead expense in per- 
centages has increased with the net result that your 
goods may be costing you practically as much as 
before. It goes without saying that all the above is 
with the understanding that the overhead has been 
reduced to the lowest possible point." 

I told our vice-president I did not quite follow 
him in this matter. I could see what he was driving 
at and that was that it was possible with the de- 
creasing sales to get to the point where, with the 
present organization and equipment, we might be 
losing money. 

"Well," replied the vice-president, "I am not 
sure that the above is clearly expressed, but the 
thing that has come home to me very strongly is 
that in spite of our efforts in a certain department 
to reduce the cost of material and the cost of pro- 
ductive labor there has been such an increase in the 

(61) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



overhead that our result in costs is not as low as we 
had hoped it would be. 

"Of course, the moral of this tale is that it is very 
foolish for manufacturers today to feel that they 
can safely reduce their prices in proportion to the 
reduction of their material and productive labor. 
It is equally foolish for the consumer to press, and 
press, and press, for a lower price as in the long 
run he will not be the gainer. What he saves in 
initial price he will lose in quality. Generally 
speaking, it seems to me that a fair price based on 
reasonable costs should be safest, as our experience 
has been that the decline in raw materials and labor 
is very often offset by the increase in overhead. 
The result, i. e., the cost being, generally speaking, 
the same. 

"I realize, of course, that if this is not understood 
in the right way it is liable to serious criticism, but 
I do feel that there is a danger which all manufac- 
turers are facing in their eagerness to obtain orders 
in underestimating the dangerous increase in over- 
head, which is just as much a factor in their costs 
as any material they purchase or the labor which 
they hire." 

That night at home, when I got to figuring over 
what the vice-president had told me, his equation 
stuck in my mind and I began to figure this thing 
out. In a general way no doubt he was right and 

(62) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

we have got to constantly look out for our over- 
head and see that it does not overbalance the other 
costs. So I figured with paper and pencil an equa- 
tion of my own, letting 100 per cent represent the 
cost of production for one month under normal 
conditions, this money having been spent for the 
following : raw material, productive labor and over- 
head, which includes all other costs of doing busi- 
ness. 

Let us take the following as an arbitrary division 
of these expenses : 

Labor, 33% per cent of total cost for one month 
(normal). 

Material, 33% per cent of total cost for one 
month (normal). 

Overhead, 33% per cent of total for one month 
(normal). 

Letting M represent material ; L represent labor, 
and H represent overhead, we have the following 
equation for a normal month: 

331/3 M + 331/3 L + 331/3 H = 100 cost. 

Now if we come to a month when business is de- 
creased one-half this equation still based on a nor- 
mal month's business would be : 

16% M + 16% L + 33% H = 66% cost. 

This is arranged on the basis that the overhead 
has been reduced in the normal month to the mini- 

(63) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



mum and cannot be further reduced by slack busi- 
ness. 

It will be seen immediately that 66% per cent 
of the cost of a normal month's business is lower 
than the normal month's cost, but on the other hand, 
it must be considered that a reduction of one-half 
in material and one-half in labor will produce only 
one-half of the normal month's output and that 
for this 50 per cent output the cost is 66% per cent, 
and that at the same selling price there has been a 
loss of 16% per cent of the cost during a normal 
month, or on the basis of the 50 per cent production 
there is an increase of 33% per cent in the cost of 
production over the normal cost of production. 

These figures would seem to show that running 
a business at one-half normal output adds 33% per 
cent to the normal cost of production. At any rate 
when I got through figuring, while I didn't agree 
with the vice-president's equation in detail, I did 
in principle. 

There is no question but what we attempt many 
times to conduct our business on the theory that 
our output shall always be normal. We ought to 
have learned a lesson in the last year or two, if we 
have never learned it before, that we never can 
figure on normal business and that one of the most 
dangerous things that we can do is to cut prices. 
We must figure carefully all of our costs, based on 

(64) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

the experience of a number of years, and stick to 
them. We are in business to make a profit and not 
simply to go through the motions of making a 
profit. 



(65) 



X. 

REGARDING THE VALUE TO A BUSI- 
NESS MAN OF HAVING AN 
IMAGINATION. 

The president took us all out to lunch and paid 
for it, including the cigars. He said he couldn't 
afford to do it out of the profits of 1914, but he 
would take a chance on 1915. The vice-president 
asked him if that was about as long a chance as he 
wanted to take on the coming year. 

"Well," replied the president, "we have to take 
some chances. A man with an imagination is al- 
ways willing to take a chance, and, as a matter of 
fact, a good business man ought to have a pretty 
good sized imagination. Possibly the fact that only 
a few people have an imagination is an explana- 
tion as to why there are few comparatively success- 
ful business men." 

The mechanical expert entered the conversation 
with the remark that very probably the vast ma- 
jority of people are born without an imagination — 
never have made any attempt to cultivate one — 
and have no idea what imagination means or is. 

"As for myself, I think that we may make of an 
imagination too much of a good thing. It is of 
course like many other good things. Too much of 

(66) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

a good thing has been the cause of a whole lot of 
bad things, and one curse in business is the lack of 
keeping a good sized imagination within proper 
limits. The keeping of a good sized imagination 
within proper limits is absolutely essential." 

The president smiled as he turned to me and 
said: "There is no question but what you have a 
good sized imagination." 

"Does he keep it within limits?" queried the vice- 
president. 

The president dodged and said he refused to 
commit himself. 

"Well," I asserted with some emphasis, "I am 
going to hang on to my imagination because I don't 
believe that we will get anywhere unless someone 
keeps his imagination at work. I believe that this 
country is settling down to ten or fifteen years of 
the very best and biggest prosperity that we have 
ever known. The war in Europe is going to have 
the tendency to slow down the rising tide of busi- 
ness prosperity, and I believe it will be a pretty 
good thing. It's going to be a couple of years be- 
fore we get under way, but when we get a-going, 
we are going to 'go some.' " 

"I thought you didn't approve of slang," re- 
marked the vice-president. 

"Well, I don't except in the bosom of our own 
family, and I am simply using it by way of empha- 

(67) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



sis. Now this 'going some 5 in business is going to 
be made possible only by a fuller realization on the 
part of the general public that prosperity in busi- 
ness is of greater importance to more people than 
anything else in this country. You know we can 
have bad crops, and a farmer can have two or three 
off years and get into debt, or he can have over- 
production and have to use his crops for fuel or 
fire-wood, but in either case he is not going to 
starve; and, while agriculture is our largest in- 
dustry, and the railroads come next, still, at the 
same time, business is larger, more far-reaching, 
and of more importance to more people than any- 
thing else could possibly be. 

"Now, when there are hard times for the farmer, 
he can eat up last year's potatoes and grow enough 
vegetables and fruit to keep him going, and patch 
up his old clothes. He has enough on the farm to 
use in the way of fuel to keep him warm. But what 
happens to the ordinary man in the business world 
— not only the man who works with his hands, but 
the man who works with his head and his hands, 
when we have hard times in business? A certain 
large percentage of men who are employed by busi- 
ness institutions, manufacturing concerns, indus- 
trial plants, etc., are going to lose their jobs — are 
going to lose their sources of income. They are not 
in the position of the farmer, where they have some- 

(68) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

thing to fall back on, and in many instances it 
means actual starvation. 

"It is all right to regulate business, but people 
generally have got to come to a fuller and more 
definite appreciation of what the word regulate 
means. A man can regulate his watch so that it 
keeps good time without tearing out the main 
spring with a pair of pliers in his enthusiasm at 
getting at the works. A man who regulates his 
watch must be very careful, and generally, if he 
has a good watch, he goes to a watch maker and 
does not tinker with it himself. There is no need 
of spoiling a watch just because it doesn't keep 
good time, and there is no need of upsetting busi- 
ness and bringing suffering and want to thousands 
simply because business is not keeping 'good time.' 
We are going to regulate it with just the same ex- 
pert care as we regulate the watch on which we 
have spent a considerable amount of money. Now, 
some of the regulation of business has been done 
by taking a big monkey wrench to adjust some deli- 
cate cog. And we must simply stop doing it — 
that's all. 

"Well — Here's to a prosperous new year, the 
best yet!" 



(69) 



XI. 

iWHO PAYS THE FREIGHT" BECAUSE 

OF THE "WAITING IN THE 

OUTER OFFICE." 

"Did you ever notice what a difference there is in 
the way you sit down on a chair at different times, 
or the way in which different people sit down on a 
chair at the same time — I don't mean the same 
chair, but different chairs ? Well, if you never have, 
do. I thought of it when the sales manager came 
in to lunch yesterday. He didn't sit down on the 
chair; he dropped into it." 

"Well," he said, "I have complained a good many 
times about having to sit around in the outer office 
of some railway official for several hours waiting for 
a chance to talk to that particular individual re- 
garding our product which might be used on the 
order that was hanging fire. Now, I would be glad 
of an opportunity to sit in an office like that for 
three days, just so as to know that there were some 
orders." 

"What is it that the poet says about not appreci- 
ating one's blessings until they have departed?" I 
asked. 

"Never mind your poets. I am in no mood to 

(70) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

hear anything about them, nor your philosophers, 
nor anyone else." 

"Well, then, I will leave them alone and come 
right down to something that ought to interest you. 
Just for the sake of orders you are willing to 
waste a lot of time sitting around railroad officials' 
offices. I can remember the time not very long 
ago when you were doing some very loud hollering 
here at the lunch table, due to the fact that you had 
traveled eight hundred miles and back, sat around 
a railroad man's office for a w r eek or more, only to 
be told that no decision in regard to the forthcom- 
ing order had been reached. It is too bad I did not 
keep a record of what you had to say." 

"That's right," remarked the sales manager, "go 
on and rub it in. Hit a fellow when he is down." 

"Well," I remarked, "perhaps if I hit you hard 
enough, you would get up and go to it." 

"I didn't order pork chops and sweet potatoes," 
broke in the vice-president. "I ordered a club 
sandwich." 

"I should think the waiter would know by this 
time what you wanted without your asking for it," 
remarked the mechanical expert. "You have been 
eating club sandwiches at this restaurant for the 
last two years and a half, until I have come to con- 
sider you one of the experts regarding that particu- 
lar dish." 

(71) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



"The sales manager and I are pretty good friends 
— not that that is anything unusual in our organiza- 
tion, because we are all of us a pretty happy family 
and loyal to each other. We have to be in these 
later days of business, when you are standing with 
your back to the wall and fighting for your busi- 
ness existence, not only fighting competition, but 
legislation, and regulation, and investigation, and a 
few other things that end with 'ion.' Anyway, I 
was just saying that the sales manager and myself 
are on good terms, so I decided to elaborate a little 
on the subject which he had brought up. 

"For some time the attention of the high railroad 
officials has been centered on possible economies. 
Undoubtedly a great deal of effective work has 
been done, and we cannot but believe today that the 
railroads are much better off than they would have 
been had not this investigation of method and 
adaptation of proper remedies taken place. The 
railroads are buying more and more economically, 
and rightly so, and we believe that the stockholders 
of the railroad companies of this country are en- 
joying dividends today which they would not have 
enjoyed had not railroad officials been as energetic 
and as able as they have been in this matter of 
economy. But the point that the sales manager 
touched on is one phase of the question that is of 
importance and seemingly has been overlooked, 

(72) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

and that is the amount of time, which of course 
means money, that has been lost on account of 
railway supply salesmen and representatives wait- 
ing around railroad offices to get a hearing. I rea- 
lize of course that the railroad official is a busy 
man, but I have been wondering whether or not a 
number of these gentlemen could not handle mat- 
ters in such a way that if a concern had no show 
for the business, the representative of that concern 
would be told so. Furthermore would it not be to 
the interest of the railroad to permit the represen- 
tative of the concern whose goods are acceptable 
to have an early hearing and a quicker decision 
than is in vogue at the present time? 

"After all has been said, the old adage 'Jones 
pays the freight' holds true. If a manufacturer has 
to stand the expense of his representative waiting 
around for days and days, that expense must be 
taken care of out of the sale of his goods. In other 
words, the overhead expense must be increased by 
the amount or value of the lost time, in order that 
the manufacturer shall break even. It therefore 
follows on the final analysis that it is to the advan- 
tage of the purchasing officer to come to as early a 
decision as is proper, and thus avoid the unneces- 
sary loss of valuable time, which the railroad com- 
pany in the end must pay for. 

"Not only is this true in the case of time being 

(73) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



used, but also in a number of cases where men are 
summoned many times from a considerable dis- 
tance; three trips are made where only one would 
have been necessary, and the railroad eventually 
must take care of the expense for the two extra 
trips. There are some wonderful exceptions to 
the general practice. I have in mind a number of 
purchasing officials of high standing who are ex- 
perts in the quick handling of the men who call 
upon them, and who seem to have innate ability to 
quickly dispatch important business. These men 
buy just as closely as those men who take up con- 
siderably more time. It is well for us to remember 
the old adage 'Time is Money,' and when you 
couple with this the second axiomatic truth that 
the customer eventually must pay for the goods, 
the conclusion is that it is to his, the customer's, 
interest to have transactions taken care of and 
handled in as brief a time as is proper." 

"When I was a young man," remarked the presi- 
dent; "I will correct that — when I was a younger 
man, I was working for one of the big jobbing 
houses here in Chicago, and was assistant to the 
general sales manager, who was one of the junior 
partners in the firm. He had a big buyer in from 
the far west, and the junior partner and the senior 
partner invited the customer out to dinner. I was 
taken along, as the junior partner said that I might 

(74) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

get a little experience in the proper handling of a 
big buyer. We had everything to eat that anyone 
would want, all the way from soup to nuts, and 
plenty to drink, even for those days. When we 
were all through with the dinner, and everybody 
had had everything that they wanted, the head of 
the firm was still very insistent on buying some- 
thing more for the valued customer, and fairly in- 
sisted on another bottle of wine. The buyer had 
had more than plenty, but the senior partner would 
not take a refusal; the wine must be ordered, and 
the buyer finally submitted. 'Very well/ he said, 
'bring it on. I am paying for it anyway. 5 

"I don't know," continued the president, "as to 
whether the general sales manager expected that I 
would learn just what I did learn that evening, but 
I have never forgotten that dinner, and when I 
keep a salesman waiting for a day or three days or 
a week, when I have him come to see me from a 
thousand miles away, of even five hundred, I figure 
that I am paying for his time, his hotel bills, and 
his railroad fare, and I do not see why this is not 
just as true in railroad purchases." 



(75) 



THE AUTOCRAT 




(76) 



XII. 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

"Who 'pays the freight' because of the 'waiting 
in the outer office' i,J developed no little correspon- 
dence with the editor and as it is so pertinent to the 
subject it seems fitting that some of it should be 
included in this "autocrat" series. The writers wish 
their identities concealed and naturally their wishes 
in this regard are respected. — The Author. 

THE OUTER OFFICE. 

Editor, Railway Review: 

The man who wrote the article on waiting in the 
"outer office," under the title "The Autocrat at the 
Lunch Table," is no editor, but he ought to be. I 
don't know who he is, but I am sure he must be a 
brother railway supply man who has gone through 
the mill as I have. 

For thirty odd years I have been wearing out 
chairs in the outer office of railway officials who 
have in hand the purchasing or requisition of equip- 
ment and supplies, and for the same length of time 
I have been wearing out shoe leather and patience, 
and spending money for railroad fare, Pullman, 
and hotels. I have often traveled five hundred or 
a thousand miles when an order was pending, had a 
talk with the railroad official, and was told to wait 

(77) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



over a few days until they could come to a decision. 
Time and again no decision has been reached, noth- 
ing done, and I have wandered back home, either 
to hear that my competitor got the order, or else 
to get another request to come the five hundred or 
a thousand miles, and go through the first per- 
formance over again. 

Conditions have changed a little since I first be- 
gan my career as a peddler for a railroad supply 
house, but I think there is a whole lot of room for 
improvement, because the time wasted in this way 
has to be paid for by somebody, and the somebody 
in the final analysis is the stockholder of the rail- 
road. 

I am not very much of an artist, but I am taking 
the liberty of sending you a picture which I think 
will express not only my own feelings, but I think 
it will express the feelings of a great many of my 
fellow supply men. So far as I am personally con- 
cerned, I have no objections to continuing in the 
old way. I am accustomed to it, and it doesn't 
bother me at all to sit in the office of a purchasing 
agent for an hour or ten hours. I have sat in un- 
comfortable chairs in the outer offices for so many 
hours, for so many years, that my physical consti- 
tution has become adapted to such chairs, and I 
really feel uncomfortable in an upholstered or 
cushioned chair. My sense for the artistic has been 

(78) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

destroyed by spending so much time gazing upon 
the four bleak walls of an ordinary railroad office. 
Perhaps yon can deduce this fact from the drawing 
which I am sending } r ou. 

Of course, the railroads are absolutely dependent 
upon the railroad supply industry for the successful 
operation of their lines, as the improvements in 
locomotives and cars and appliances that go with 
them have been the product of the brain and brawn 
of the manufacturers of railway supplies. It is the 
railway supply man who builds the bridges and 
equips the railroads with signaling systems. It 
would almost seem that he would be welcomed as 
a long lost friend in the office of almost any rail- 
road purchasing agent in the country. 

There is one fellow who is buying for a railroad 
— I won't mention his name. He is as bright as a 
steel trap, and always has time to see you, if only 
to say "Hello"; he doesn't try to beat you down to 
the last red cent when you are selling him some- 
thing, is always appreciative of anything you can 
do that will benefit his road, and I want to say that 
I don't think there is a railroad in the United 
States that gets any more for their money than 
does that road. That fellow has got a way of get- 
ting every railway supply man to work for him, 
and I am not ashamed to say that I am one of 
them. Whenever I hear about anything that is es- 

(79) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



pecially good, I always go to that fellow with it 
first. It is needless to say that the picture that I 
am sending is not sketched in nor of his outer office. 

"An Old Timer." 

THE INNER OFFICE. 

My Dear Mr. "An Old Timer," 

Care Editor, Railway Review : 

I read your letter in the last issue of the Railway 
Review with a good deal of interest and I enjoyed 
taking a look at the illustration which you worked 
up. I don't think you will take it amiss if I talk 
to you quite frankly in regard to the situation which 
you discussed in your letter. I have been on the 
other side of the fence. I was a "peddler" before I 
becajne a purchasing agent. I appreciate that there 
is some truth in what you had to say and I don't 
think your picture is at all overdrawn, but since I 
have been sitting on this side of the desk I have 
been looking at things from an entirely different 
viewpoint, and I am able to see some things now 
that I was unable to comprehend when I was in the 
position that you occupy. 

You know the purchasing agent of a railroad has 
to buy that which costs the least money, and I am 
not looking at it from the standpoint of what is 
the cheapest in the first cost. I think I keep pretty 
well in mind in my purchases what the cost of any 
appliance will be in the final analysis. Now it is 

(80) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

possible to do this without listening to the argu- 
ments of the average salesman. If a railway sup- 
ply house, instead of sending out salesmen, so 
called, would send out someone from their shop or 
drafting room, who really knew how the appliance 
was made and constructed, the average purchasing 
agent could get at just the value of the particular 
appliance a good deal easier than he does now, and 
with a good deal less waste of time. Nine-tenths 
of the men that come into my office come in to sell 
me something, and possibly that is all right from 
the viewpoint of the other side of the desk ; but I 
am not hired by the railroad company, for whom I 
am working, to buy for this company in just that 
way. I am looking for information, and the man 
who can educate me is always welcome. The man 
who can talk to me I must endure, and he is the 
type of salesman that clutters up my outside office. 
I want to be courteous and give everybody an op- 
portunity, but in these days of most careful buying 
the purchasing agent must scrutinize pretty care- 
fully the thing bought, and he is looking for a sales- 
man who will help him in this scrutinizing. When 
the time comes when railway supply salesmen are 
experts, not in selling, but experts in designing 
and manufacturing, there will be fewer men sitting 
in the outside office. 

We have our problems in a railroad office and 

(81) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



are looking to the supply man to help us with those 
problems, not to talk us into doing something. I 
am more and more surprised every day at the 
amount of time that is wasted by the railway supply 
men around a railroad purchasing office. It looks 
as if they depended upon selling what they had 
through a process of wearing ouJ a railroad man. 
Instead of wearing him out, why not help him out ? 
I notice another thing too, the better an appliance 
is, the more apt it is to be represented by a man 
who is rather a technical expert than a salesman. 

Another thing I can't understand and that is why 
you supply concerns, most of you, use such hack- 
neyed stereotyped advertising copy in the various 
railroad papers, when you might be giving real in- 
formation that would be of value both to you and 
to me. I can assure you that the Railway Review 
does not have to sit in my outer office, but is given 
careful consideration each week. I have been read- 
ing with a good deal of interest these articles in 
the Railway Supply Man's Point of View depart- 
ment, and perhaps I am doing it more than many 
railroad men would do because of the fact that I 
was in the supply business myself. I know you 
have problems in your own particular field and I 
think the railroad man should recognize these 
problems and co-operate with the supply manu- 
facturer as we are really all one big family. 

(82) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 




The Inner Office. 



I am not an artist myself, as you are, but I got 
one of the boys in the drafting room to make up 
a sketch, which I hope the Railway Review will 
print, as it will show one way at least of saving time 
so that you won't have to spend so much time sit- 
ting in "the outer office," I think this question 
which you brought up can be solved and solved by 
the supply interests in the character of salesmen 
that they employ. It is a matter that is largely up 
to you. 

(83) 



* * 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



THE OUTER AND THE INNER OFFICES. 

My Dear Mr. * * *, 

Care Editor, Railway Review: 

I am a good deal interested in what you had to 
say in the Railway Supply Man's Point of View 
article, and if the editor doesn't want to print what 
I have to say, I hope he will pass the letter on to 
you, as I am very much in earnest in wanting to 
pursue this subject further, as there is no question 
but what somewhere between the railroad man and 
the railway supply man there is a great big eco- 
nomic waste, and if we can discover some way of 
eliminating, or even minimizing the amount of this 
wagte, it certainly ought to be worth while. 

There are two questions that I want to discuss 
with you, suggested by your communication. The 
first is the character of the salesman that calls upon 
railroad officials. Won't you give me just your 
ideas of what a salesman should be ? You say that 
you have been on both sides of the fence and you 
ought to be just the man to tell us. If the railway 
supply people can find out just what sort of a sales- 
man the railroad man wants to have call upon him, 
you can rest assured that those are the kind of 
salesmen that will be hired in the future. 

Second, as to the question of advertising, what 
you say and the sketch which you had made up 

(84) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

would seem to indicate that the proper thing to do 
is to advertise in the Railway Review. Now r I 
must agree with you that the Railway Review is a 
mighty good paper and so far as originality and 
bright matter is concerned, it is about the only rail- 
road paper that does anything on this order. It 
has seemed to me for a long time that our railroad 
papers are awfully heavy and edited in a good deal 
of a rut, but would you advise a railway supply 
man confining his advertising to the Railway Re- 
view? If you want to speak right out in meeting, 
won't you give your ideas on this matter as well? 
If we can save money by telling our story through 
the Railway Review, or through some other adver- 
tising medium, and keep our salesmen at home 
more, rest assured we would be delighted to do it. 

"An Old Timer." 

THE OUTER AND THE INNER OFFICE. 

My Dear Mr. "An Old Timer," 

Care Editor, Railway Review: 

You asked me two questions in the Railway Re- 
view of last week, and I am very glad of the oppor- 
tunity to answer them, and I will do so to the best 
of my ability. If I do not make myself clear; or 
if there is some further information that you want ; 
or if you do not agree with me, I hope I may hear 
from you through the editor, even if he does not 

(85) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



care to publish our discussion. I am most thor- 
oughly in earnest on this matter, as the extrava- 
gance in the selling department of the railway sup- 
ply business has to be paid for by someone, and I 
have a feeling that in the final analysis, it is not the 
railway supply manufacturer, but the railroad that 
has to foot the bills. 

You want to know my ideas as to what a railway 
supply salesman should be. Perhaps the best way 
of getting at this is to tell you in the first place what 
I think he should not be. There is a type of sales- 
man who calls on me that insists on my going to the 
theater with him — that I must play golf with him; 
that I must take an automobile trip with him ; that 
I must visit him on his farm ; that I must do a hun- 
dred and one different things. He is a clever indi- 
vidual; — I know that he sells a large amount of 
railway equipment and appliances ; he has a faculty 
for never forgetting a name or an address; he al- 
ways remembers you on your wedding anniversary 
or your birthday ; in fact, he excites my admiration, 
but I always have a feeling that the railway supply 
manufacturing company that employs a salesman 
of this type, who is a master of his art, does so for 
the reason that the product which they have to dis- 
pose of is inferior to that which their competitor is 
selling. Therefore, what they lack in merit they 
must make up in salesmanship. 

(86) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

There is another type of salesman, who talks very 
loud, and who sometimes weighs about two hundred 
and fifty pounds; always insists on buying you a 
drink; knows very little about the real problems 
with which a railroad man is wrestling continu- 
ously; doesn't even know much about what he is 
selling ; wants to slap you on the back, and by pow- 
erful use of his lungs and mouth, force you into 
buying whatever he may have to sell. 

Then, there is still another type of salesman, and 
I admire his qualities of persistence. He is like the 
poor — "always with you." He haunts you con- 
tinually — turning up like a bad penny. He seem- 
ingly trails you like the eagle-eyed detective in the 
dime novel. You find him sitting next to you on 
the street car ; he is in the pew back of you at church, 
if you go; he is the first man at your office in the 
morning and the last one to leave at night; if you 
ever have a chance to take a vacation, he is fishing 
in the boat next to yours, or playing golf in your 
immediate vicinity; or if you break down on an 
automobile trip, he is there within five minutes to 
help you out. He depends upon his success in 
wearing you out. The worst of it is he seems to 
thrive on the business of constantly shadowing a 
railroad man. I knew one who made a specialty of 
giving theater parties and nice little picnics to the 
children of railway officials. 

(87) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



Of course there are lots of other types of sales- 
men, but I will not take up your time by enumer- 
ating them. The three that I have mentioned have 
just occurred to me as I am dictating this letter. 
What you are really after is the type of salesman 
who I believe should be employed by railway sup- 
ply manufacturers. 

I know of no better way of telling you my ideal 
of a salesman than to describe a certain railway 
supply man, who began calling on me about four- 
teen or fifteen years ago. I knew him first when 
he was a young fellow, just out of the shops of a 
certain large railroad, where he had served as an 
apprentice. He was sent down to me by the con- 
cerir for which he was then working (and by the 
way, he is still with that same concern) to 
straighten out some mistake that had been made in 
some castings. It was rather an important matter, 
and I saw him personally when he came to our 
office. I liked the fellow at once, because, instead 
of explaining how the mistake occurred because our 
specifications were not as full and accurate as they 
should have been, and so putting the blame on us, 
or saying that the shop superintendent was at home 
sick, and thus excusing his own company — he dug 
right into the important question, and that was 
what could be done to rectify the mistake, and that 

(88) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

at once, causing us the least possible trouble, delay, 
and expense. 

I have watched that salesman during these years, 
and he has called on me a great many times, de- 
velop from a boy into a man. He is always 
bubbling over with enthusiasm and optimism and 
loyalty to the concern for which he works. He be- 
lieves thoroughly, but not blindly, in the equip- 
ment which they are manufacturing. When we are 
in the market for equipment he comes into my 
office, gives me in a few words all the information 
that I need. He tells me what service conditions 
have developed for his equipment on other roads; 
tells me very briefly what the methods of their com- 
pany are that will insure the appliance which he 
sells standing up in service. He does not run down 
the other fellow's appliance — does not intimate 
that he knows a little bit more than anyone else 
about that particular line of business. He does not 
have to. Any man can see that he is so well in- 
formed on his subject that it would be hard for 
anyone to really know much more about it than he 
does. His whole attitude is not one of attempting 
to sell me anything, but rather, he has an attitude 
of wanting to help me arrive at a decision as to 
what I had better use, and arrive at that decision 
because of my own judgment. He is always full of 
suggestions as to how I can check up on the serv- 

(89) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



ice qualities not only of his appliance, but others 
as well. I never see him but he has some sugges- 
tions to make which are of value in my department 
and for the good of our railroad. In a word, he 
keeps his eyes open, and I look upon him as the 
best posted salesman who calls upon me. I always 
have a feeling that if there were any other com- 
peting concern that made a better appliance than 
his company, he would immediately change his 
connections and go to work for the competing con- 
cern. He impresses me, and always has, with a 
thorough-going honesty, and with the conviction 
that what he sells does not need to be bolstered up 
by cigars, stories, entertainment, nor anything 
else." He is one of the kind of fellows who thor- 
oughly knows his own business and frankly and 
freely gives you the benefit of his knowledge. 

There is one other little thing that I forgot to 
mention further back, and that is that whenever he 
comes in to talk to me in regard to selling me some- 
thing, he always has written out very briefly, in 
convenient form, a summary of all that he has to 
say to me in regard to his own appliance. He 
leaves me in concrete form such statements and in- 
formation as make it possible for me to check up 
and prove whether what he said is true or false. 

Briefly, the type of salesman who should call 
upon the railroad people is a man who thoroughly 

(90) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

knows the methods of manufacturing his own ap- 
pliance, and who is also thoroughly familiar with 
the conditions under which it must see service. 
Then, he must not be a salesman who wants to sell 
me something, or put something over, but he should 
be a man who, out of his experience and knowledge, 
wants to help me select, whether it be his own ap- 
pliance or another, what is best to use on our road. 

Now, as to your second question as to where and 
how to advertise. I do not feel that I am com- 
petent to answer your question as it should be an- 
swered. Advertising is getting to be a business by 
itself, and if I were in the supply business, I should 
want to get hold of someone who knew advertising, 
— who knew railroad men personally, — who under- 
stood railroad problems and studied them, and 
who was, in addition, to this, a man who under- 
stood my own business. It may seem a rather diffi- 
cult proposition to get a man having all these quali- 
fications, but I feel very sure from some of the ad- 
vertising that I have seen that there are such men 
in existence. 

You asked me specifically about the Railway Re- 
view. I have always read this paper with interest, 
because it is doing something that other trade jour- 
nals do not seem to be attempting to do, viz., dis- 
cussing our problems and not simply reporting 
what has been done. I think if I were going into 

(91) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



the railway supply business, I would want to use a 
page in it each week in the form of an open letter 
to railroad men, telling them of my business, — what 
I had — what relations it had to their own problems ; 
in a word, give them all the information that I could 
that would enable them to decide as to whether 
what I had to sell would meet their requirements 

or not. 

# * * 

THE OUTER AND THE INNER OFFICE. 

Mr. Dear Mr. * * * 

Care Editor, Railway Review: 

Thank you very much for your ideas on the ques- 
tion jof salesmen and salesmanship, and also adver- 
tising. I will grant that theoretically you have put 
up a first class argument, but practically I think 
you have fallen down. You know we are all of us 
human, which means that we are not perfect. If 
we were, perhaps your theory would work out. 

Now, that beautiful quotation, "If a man can 
write a better book, preach a better sermon, or 
make a better mouse trap, than his neighbor, if he 
build his house in the woods, the world will make a 
beaten pathway to his door," sounds very nice, but 
it doesn't work out, not in the railway supply busi- 
ness. The man with the best railway appliance 
that you ever heard of, practical, efficient, meri- 

(92) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

torious, money saving, service giving, you might 
almost call it necessary to the operating of a rail- 
road, can grow old and gray-headed, and die in the 
poor house, before he would ever sell anything of 
merit unless he had a good, clever, wide awake, 
salesman on the job. 

I agree with you most heartily in objecting to the 
types of salesmen which you mentioned as pre- 
facing your remarks on what a salesman ought to 
be. I think your idea of a salesman as an educator, 
— in a word, a man who knows how to teach, is all 
right. Again, as a theory, this is very good, but 
educators belong to colleges and schools, and they 
won't do for the railway supply business. I be- 
lieve we have to send out men who not only know 
their business and can talk understandingly of 
problems in railroading, but who understand hu- 
man nature. There are men who appreciate a 
cigar ; there are men who expect a salesman to take 
them to the theater, and there are railroad men, 
buyers of railroad equipment, who take for granted 
a whole lot of favors of this kind, and you cannot 
sell them an article of even the greatest merit with- 
out catering to them in some way or another. Just 
let us analyze your own ideal of a salesman, which 
I think you put most aptly by describing a real 
salesman whom you know, and whom you have 
known for a number of years. 

(93) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



Here's a young fellow who, the first time you 
meet him, doesn't attempt any explanation as to a 
mistake, doesn't put the blame on you nor on his 
own concern, but energetically goes to work to see 
how the error can be rectified without any delay or 
expense to your road. Did that young fellow show 
the characteristics of an educator, or of a salesman, 
when he went at his problem of straightening out 
your troubles ? I see nothing of an educator in him 
at all. He was a salesman, and salesmanship was 
born in him. He saw then just what kind of a man 
you were, business from start to finish, interested 
in having your road get what was coming to them 
for the money expended, and he went deliberately 
to work to win his way with you by doing the very 
thing you wanted done. If you had wanted to do 
something that was detrimental to the interests of 
your road, that young fellow would never have 
stopped fighting until he had shown you the error 
of your ways, and you would have liked him all the 
better for it. Would he have done this because he 
had the instincts of a teacher? Not at all. Pure, 
unadulterated salesmanship. 

In the very first part of your description of the 
ideal salesman, you unwittingly contradict what 
you afterwards affirm. You attempt to eliminate 
personality from the business of selling railway 
appliances ; you seek to prove that it must be placed 

(94) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

upon cold basis of merit. I do not want to say a 
word against your ideal salesman, but he has you 
lined up with him because he is clever enough to do 
the things which you like and appreciate. I will 
bet a dollar to a hole in a doughnut that he calls on 
a lot of railway men where he takes to them in an 
entirely different way, where they smoke his cigars, 
and where they go to the theater many times on the 
expense account furnished him by his company. A 
railroad purchasing agent or railroad man who has 
anything to do with the buying of equipment or 
supplies is not very different from an ordinary man. 
Other things being equal, he buys from the man 
whom he naturally likes. I do not mean by this 
that he buys simply for that reason, but he does to 
a certain extent, and this is true of all of us. You 
cannot get rid of personality in any transactions in 
life. This salesman whom you refer to has your 
confidence. Why? There is just one answer, and 
that is : — not because he is well informed, and I will 
grant that he is, but because he is a clever salesman, 
doing the things that appeal to you. What ap- 
peals to you will not appeal to some other brother 
railway man, and for that reason we are going to 
have all kinds and conditions of railway supply 
{salesmen, and the smarter salesman is going to 
make a record for the larger sales. You know and 
I know that the success of the railway supply busi- 
es) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



ness, while dependent to a certain extent upon a 
meritorious product, also has to depend, and to a 
very large extent, upon good salesmanship. I for 
one would be glad to see a large amount of the un- 
necessary extravagance in selling eliminated, but it 
is going to be a long, slow process. 

Just a word in regard to your reply to my sec- 
ond question, that of advertising in general and 
advertising in the Railway Review in particular. 
I rather think you are right in regard to the use 
which you suggest of a page every week in the Rail- 
way Review. I think I could use it to advantage 
if I could find some one with ability to write some- 
thing to fit it each week, but the Shakespeares in 
the railway supply business are few and far be- 
tween, and personally, I don't know of any one 
who can write either interestingly or intelligently 
regarding railway supplies and equipment every 
week. 

I appreciate very much your taking the trouble 
of writing me as you did, and would appreciate it 
still further if you would give me your name, as I 
would like to talk things over further with you. I 
will promise you, however, that I will not attempt 
to sell you anything. 

"An Old Timer." 

[Note — We have taken great pleasure in bring- 

(96) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

ing the railroad man and the supply man together. 
We rather regret the fact in a way, as it will de- 
prive our readers of a rather interesting discussion 
which might have been continued with profit. — The 
Editor.] 



(97) 



XIII. 

INTERFERENCE WITH BUSINESS AF- 
FECTS EVERY INDIVIDUAL'S 
POCKETBOOK. 

"I wish they would put a good sized muffler on 
that orchestra," remarked the sales manager as we 
sat down to lunch. 

"Or else hire somebody to choke them," said the 
vice-president. 

"Well, evidently the proprietor of the restaurant 
is catering to the majority. He has a pretty popu- 
lar place here and he must know what he is doing," 
I remarked. "The fact that this particular luncheon 
party doesn't appreciate an orchestra doesn't say 
that it is not generally appreciated. As a matter of 
fact, why shouldn't a man in the railway supply 
business want something stimulating right now, if 
it's only music? You know they give soldiers plenty 
of it, and of the most stirring kind, because they 
think they get better fighting out of them and it 
helps them along on a tedious march." 

"I don't see what that has to do with it," broke 
in the sales manager. "We are not soldiers and 
don't want to be." 

"That is true, but we have a good sized fight on 
our hands most of the time, and especially just at 

(98) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

present. I will agree that we don't really crave 
music of any kind, except that low musical sound 
that is made by an order. There are other things 
that military authorities furnish, and vastly more 
important than the fife and drum idea. We used 
to send our soldiers into battle to the strain of some 
inspiring national melody or march and expect 
them to do better fighting, but we don't send 
soldiers into battle the same way these days as we 
did fifty or a hundred years ago. We are not going 
to get the business in any hurrah fashion, even if 
there was a time when we could put it over that 
way. I think we have something to learn from 
military tactics which might be applied to business." 

"Possibly that is all true," broke in the vice-presi- 
dent as he ordered his regulation club sandwich. 

"You know the importance of having soldiers 
well fed," remarked the president, as he placed a 
good liberal order with the waiter. "You don't 
think you are going to be able to do your duty by 
this company as its vice-president if you continue 
to feed on club sandwiches, do you? You need 
something more substantial than that to get busi- 
ness moving again." 

"A full stomach and an empty head," remarked 
the mechanical expert. 

I was afraid it would lead to a rather lengthy dis- 
cussion if I picked up that remark. I don't think 

(99) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



much of that theory and never did, because if a 
man's head is so weak that it is affected by what he 
eats, I don't believe he can do much with it anyway. 

"Somebody was asking me the other day," said 
the sales manager, "what we could do now that 
would be of benefit to business, that is to our own 
particular business when there wasn't any." 

"There isn't very much to be done," I replied. 
"What is affecting our own business and business 
generally right now had its causes way back, 
months and possibly years ago. We cannot win 
battles today on the spur of the moment and with 
the help of volunteers. It means the most careful, 
thorough and systematic planning years in advance 
of a battle or a campaign, if it is to be waged suc- 
cessfully and a victory won. . We have the same 
proposition in business. We have to plan for the 
future. We cannot, when we meet a difficulty 
which is here because of basic fundamental reasons, 
remove it in a few weeks. There is something 
fundamentally wrong with business, and has been 
for some time. We are feeling the effects because 
we are not far-sighted enough to have been at work 
some time ago in removing the cause. 

"What interests us more right now and where 
we can do more effective work is in planning for the 
years that are to come. It must be that somewhere 
in this big country of ours there are business con- 

(100) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

cerns that are conducting their business affairs 
more successfully than are we. There must be 
some concerns, differing not so greatly from our 
own company, who have a more efficient system of 
bookkeeping, who know their shop costs better, who 
have better ways of buying material, who have bet- 
ter sales methods, with apologies, of course, to the 
sales manager. I don't like to criticise our presi- 
dent ; it is not in the way of criticism when I suggest 
that possibly there are some things being done by 
presidents of other companies which would be worth 
while for us to study. The conduct of business is a 
problem and nothing will do us any more good and 
will be any more worth while than to take hold of 
our own business right now and discover our weak 
points. We must admit that we have some. Let 
us get rid of them." 

"That all sounds very fine," said the president, 
"and I can agree with what you said, but there are 
conditions over which we have very little control — 
legislation by the government, which reflects simply 
the voice of the people, and many other things con- 
cerning business generally. It is not ours to de- 
cide." 

"I think right here is where we are making a mis- 
take. The welfare of general business is every- 
body's business. We will take that for granted. 
The result is that the job is not being very well 

(101) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



handled. Isn't it up to us, as a company, to take 
an interest in general business ? The fact is I think 
that out of the very poor conditions which prevail 
just at the present time is coming a whole lot that 
will be for the good of business collectively and indi- 
vidually. It means a campaign of education as to 
what business really means and how it affects peo- 
ple in every walk of life. The voters of this coun- 
try have got to have a thorough appreciation and 
understanding of the fact that business is some con- 
cern of theirs and interference with business means 
interference with their own pocketbook and income. 
Now I don't know who is going to educate the peo- 
ple up to this understanding if it isn't the business 
man, and why this company of ours is not just as 
muchf concerned as anyone else I can't understand. 
The fact that some of our neighbors are not taking 
any very broad view of the situation is no reason 
why we shouldn't." 

"Well, we have some organizations that are doing 
some good work all over the country in the inter- 
ests of business," remarked someone at the table, I 
forget now who it was. 

"Yes, that is all true enough, but 'organizations' 
are composed of individuals or companies and the 
life of the organization is going to depend very 
largely upon how much life there is in the members 
of the organization. We can talk about this whole 

(102) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

proposition until we are tired, and possibly that pre- 
cedes the doing, but certain it is that the business 
man today has got to be continually alive to the 
situation and has got to keep uppermost in his mind 
the fact that the people of this country must be edu- 
cated as to the needs and requirements of business 
and the effect of business upon every citizen of this 
commonwealth. We are going to have hard times 
and panics periodically until we can get this whole 
question thoroughly and constantly before the peo- 
ple as in the final analysis they have the say." 



(103) 



XIV. 

THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO EVERY 

FENCE. 

"Did you ever notice," I asked the president, 
after our entire business family had ordered 
luncheon, "that a man's appetite is never so keen 
following the holidays as it is at any other time?" 

"Probably you have noticed it this year," he re- 
plied, "as every one is making an attempt at least 
to be economical." 

"No, that's not the reason. A man's system is 
surfeited with candies and sweets and pastry at 
Christmas and New Year's, and it takes the edge 
off his appetite." 

"That may all be'so," remarked the president, 
"but if you would spend less time theorizing on non- 
essentials and put more of your gray matter to work 
on essentials, you might be in a better position to 
earn your salary." 

As I am always looking for an argument, I 
wasn't going to hold back even for what the presi- 
dent might say, because he is eminently fair-mind- 
ed, and I think listens even more carefully to the 
men who are working for him than he would listen 
to some one for whom he might be working. 

"It's a great questions as to whether anything is 

(104) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

non-essential. Everything is essential in that every- 
thing has an effect." 

When I made this statement the president just 
smiled and said: "Well, go ahead; let's hear what 
you have on your mind today. Perhaps it is just 
as well not to discuss anything too serious during 
the lunch hour." 

"I will drop the subject for something which per- 
tains more closely to our business, if I may be per- 
mitted," I said, "and talk somewhat along the 
same lines, using as my illustration business condi- 
tion so far as this company is concerned. 

"If the physical being does not crave as much 
food at one time as another, no matter what the 
cause, is it unreasonable to suppose that there will 
be variations in business ? Isn't it possible that buy- 
ing may be overdone — that we may be choked with 
products purchased?" 

"I haven't noticed anybody choking," inter- 
rupted the sales manager; "that is, among the rail- 
road men. They really look as if they are coming 
nearer to being starved to death for want of ma- 
terial and appliances." 

"Probably our autocrat is looking at this in a 
little bit broader way," suggested the vice-presi- 
dent. "He evidently intends to give us a disserta- 
tion on the ebb and flow, the rise and fall, the ex- 
pansion and contraction in the busiess world. He 

(105) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



evidently intends to illustrate the law of supply and 
demand to show us how the depression in the rail- 
way supply business has been directly caused by 
the workings under this law." 

The mechanical expert was sitting next to me at 
the table, and I remarked to him very quietly that 
I wished I could talk off-hand the way the vice- 
president does, instead of laboring over my words 
and getting involved in my meanings. 

"I see you want to talk, anyway," said the vice- 
president, who had observed my whispering to the 
mechanical expert, "so go ahead. You are well 
named the 'autocrat,' for you insist on doing all the 
talking at every luncheon." 

"Seriously, now," I said to the vice-president, "I 
am a believer in these great fundamental laws, and 
I am strictly in favor of not trying to repeal or 
amend or interfere with the workings of tthem, 
and that is about what has been happening here in 
the last few years. Business is in the condition that 
it is, due, not so much to the workings of the law of 
supply and demand as to the interference on the 
part of a few finite human beings who imagine that 
they have infinite wisdom and can improve a little 
on what the Almighty has established as being 
fundamental laws in the operation of things." 

"I would just like to know what your ideas of 
fundamental laws are," remarked the president. 

(106) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"That's a pretty tough question to put to a man 
when he is eating his lunch, as it is a question that 
certainly requires some thinking. There are sev- 
eral men in the history, who I must admit knew at 
least as much as I do, who have spent most of their 
lifetime in trying to figure it out, and I am not 
going to do it now in fifteen minutes while I'm eat- 
ing my lunch. Besides, you said that we were to 
keep this conversation somewhere within bounds so 
that our lunch will be not only enjoyed, but of some 
direct and lasting benefit to our physical and men- 
tal well-being." 

Just then a railroad man came over and sat down 
at the table with us. 

"I heard the word 'autocrat' mentioned," he 
said, "and I'm wondering if I can discover in this 
little group the man who writes under that title for 
the Railway Review." 

"He is an autocrat and he is an egotist, and he is 
a pessimist, and he is an optimist, and a few other 
things," remarked the sales manager, "and there he 
sits" (pointing to me). 

The railroad man turned his attention to me at 
once and began to tell me what he thought about 
what I had had to say in reference to the amount 
of time wasted by supply salesmen seeing railroad 
officials. 

"If you were on my side of the fence you would 

(107) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



see things in a different light. There are always 
two sides to a question, and I think that the supply- 
man is more to blame for this deplorable condition, 
because it is deplorable, than is the railroad man." 

There is a way of remedying this trouble, and the 
railroad man began to tell me how to do it. 

"Don't," I said; "I can't take it down in short- 
hand and my memory won't hold out. But why 
don't you address a letter to the editor of the Rail- 
way Review and give him your ideas ? That's what 
the paper is being published for. The editor wants 
to get opinions from everyone, thrash these subjects 
out, and see if we can't get somewhere. I don't be- 
lieve everything I write ; I am simply trying to stir 
up a discussion." 

"1*11 do it," said the railroad man, "and I'm 
going to address my letter to that fellow who signs 
himself 'Old Timer.' He evidently is, and I can 
tell him a few things which I think will get him 
straightened out." 

As we left the restaurant I said to the railroad 
man: "I wish you would write something and send 
it in to the Review. I am sure they would be glad 
to publish it, and really we get somewhere when we 
thrash these things out. There is nothing like put- 
ting yourself down in cold black and white on a 
printed page. It gives the other fellow a chance 
to go after you when you have gone on record as 

(108) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

saying something, and you have to be pretty careful 
what you say when it goes down in print. I am a 
great believer in discussions; we have enough of 
them at our lunch table every day, but I do think 
that writing them out afterwards helps to get us 
somewhere." 

As we walked down the street the railroad man 
caught up with the mechanical expert and I saw 
them have a few minutes' very earnest conversa- 
tion. 

"What did he have to say?" I asked the mechan- 
ical expert when the railroad man had gone. 

"He wants to talk to me about some cars they are 
going to order," said the mechanical expert, "but 
he wanted nothing said about it, and he tells me 
that there are a whole lot of railroads who are figur- 
ing very quietly on their needs, and they are going 
to buy carefully and conservatively, and are going 
to be sure to get the best." 

"If they will only hang on to that idea of buying 
the best," I replied, "there is plenty of business 
ahead for us." 



(109) 



XV. 

THREE GREAT FEARS. 

Our little business family had their usual lunch- 
eon, but the autocrat was among the missing, being 
home, in bed, and sick. Perhaps we should put it 
the other way — being sick, therefore, like a wise 
man, in bed, and, like a wiser man, in his own home. 
There is no place like home for being sick. It isn't 
very often that I get laid up, but I was this time, 
and I am still feeling the effects of it. 

The sales manager told me it was a great relief 
to have me absent from one lunch, where they 
could jeat what was set before them in peace, and 
not in pieces, due to my continual interruption in 
the way of talk. Of course the sales manager thinks 
that nothing should be talked about at lunch except 
something in the way of alleged humorous stories. 
He goes on the theory that it's an aid to digestion. 
I would not exactly accuse our sales manager of 
being unable to talk on serious matters, but I will 
say that he doesn't want to. 

When a man is sick, lying in bed, with nothing 
to do but look at the ceiling, too tired to read, he 
gets to thinking, and if he is sick enough, he gets to 
thinking some pretty sober thoughts. Your auto- 
crat held quite a little conference with himself this 

(no) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

last week, not feeling in the mood for reading, and 
the doctor always suggests the fact that everybody 
has to die some time or other. A person can avoid 
paying taxes, avoid getting married, avoid work- 
ing for a living, and dodge a whole lot of things, 
but he can't dodge death. We figure out almost 
everything in this old world of ours, and probably 
more time has been put on this problem than any 
other one question, but it still remains unsolved. 
Of course, we don't know what life itself is. 

There seem to be three great fears always upper- 
most in the human mind. They are antagonistic to 
life, or to the will to live. The first is death, the 
second poverty, and the third public opinion. Pos- 
sibly the question may arise right here as to 
whether such a discussion has any part in the rail- 
way supply business. The second great fear which 
I have mentioned suggested a whole line of thought 
to me because it is so closely related to the railway 
supply business at the present time, — that is, pov- 
erty. If the wolf has never been at the door in the 
supply business heretofore, he is certainly close 
enough this time, — in fact, close enough so that we 
can hear his howling in the near distance. There is 
no question but what we want to get rid of him. To 
do it is a big problem. 

To get back — without attempting to analyze life, 
or discover what it is, it might be interesting to 

(in) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



know why life fears death, poverty, and public opin- 
ion. Perhaps a discussion of death might be 
thought barred, as we are not supposed to enter the 
religious field, but should rather stay within the 
confines of our own bailiwick. Of course, when we 
speak of death, we speak of physical death ; — being 
a matter having to do simply with the physical, it 
is more or less unimportant and we can drop it. 

But what of poverty? Why the fear of poverty? 
Is it closely connected in our thoughts with physical 
starvation, and hence physical death? Partly so, 
perhaps, but I am rather inclined to think that the 
fear of poverty on the part of life is more because 
poverty circumscribes and limits the possible, fuller 
development of life. Absence of poverty makes 
possible progress either for a race or an individual. 
Where either the individual man or the individual 
nation has to spend its entire time in providing food 
to keep from actual starvation, there is no oppor- 
tunity for progress or development, individually or 
collectively. While life fears death, and for that 
reason fears poverty, life fears poverty more be- 
cause of the sub-conscious knowledge that poverty 
stands always in the way of progress, and life itself 
is progress. 

But why should life fear public opinion? Pos- 
sibly this fear is simply an echo of the past, — per- 
haps an atavistic tendency of thought, — we may 

(112) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

inherit it from the far-gone ages when "might made 
right." I think perhaps I am all wrong in this. 
When I get down to "might makes right," I find 
that this is something belonging to the present day. 
We have not yet grown out of and away from our 
savage instincts. The will of the majority still 
rules, not because it is right, but because it is 
"might." 

It is possible that we are not analyzing along the 
right lines. It may be that public opinion helps life 
in its progress by rightly directing its course. Still, 
it is sometimes a question if public opinion is always 
right. There is a chance that it is, in the finality of 
things. It is very evident that the greatest good to 
the greatest number is right, and when we have a 
wrong perpetrated upon the greatest number, we 
begin to get a protest from them, and this we call 
"public opinion." 

I can just imagine the howl that will be forth- 
coming from the sales manager when he reads this, 
'f What's all that stuff got to do with the railway 
supply business?" — I hear him say. 

If there is anything fundamentally wrong in the 
railway supply business, it is that we are not tak- 
ing up fundamentally, fundamentals in the con- 
duct of our business. The high cost of living, or the 
cost of high living, the regulation of railroad rates, 
legislation for or against business, competition, or 

(113) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



combination, free trade or protective tariff, are not 
entirely caused by nor settled by political parties, 
theological professors, or efficiency experts. We 
must drive deeper in our investigations than we 
have been doing; we must get beneath the surface 
of things ; we must study life, not only in relation to 
its three great fears, — death, poverty, and public 
opinion, but as business men, we must drive down 
deep to fundamental, basic law. Only by so doing 
are we going to arrive at a positive, permanent, and 
peaceful solution of problems which belong to us, 
individually and collectively, in the railway supply 
business. 



(114) 



XVI. 
COMPANY ANNUAL DINNERS. 

The sales manager laughed good-naturedly as I 
came in to luncheon last week, and greeted me with 
"Well, you thought you were kind of hitting at me 
a little in what you had to say in last week's Auto- 
crat. I can't say that I am particulary interested in 
your essay, as I think you had better confine your- 
self to telling what goes on at this lunch table, and 
not get to wandering around where you are liable 
to get lost. However," he added, "I am rather 
inclined to agree with what you had to say. 

"While you were home sick, I had the very en- 
joyable privilege of attending a couple of annual 
dinners given by two different business concerns 
for their officers, members of the organizations, and 
some of their friends, and I want to say that I not 
only had a first-rate time, but I think those two 
companies are doing a very wise thing. They are 
creating an esprit de corps in their organizations 
that is well worth the time and thought and energy 
that somebody must necessarily put into such a 
dinner." 

"Would you suggest such a dinner for our com- 
pany?" I asked. 

(115) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



"Yes, if you think it is 'fundamentally' the cor- 
rect and proper thing to do." 

"You haven't gotten over what I had to say last 
week, have you?" I asked the sales manager. "You 
can make all the fun you want to about the word 
'fundamental,' but it is a pretty good word to use 
in these days when there is so much that is super- 
ficial. You are rather dodging my question as to 
whether you think annual dinners would be good 
for our company. Possibly you don't want to com- 
mit yourself until our president has had something 
to say." 

I looked at the president at this point, and he 
appeared to be interested, so I thought I would go 
on in- regard to the annual dinner idea. 

"I have attended annual dinners myself, a num- 
ber of them, given by different business concerns," 
and I turned to the president with the remark that 
I thought it would be well to try the thing once, 
suggesting to him whom we should invite, and went 
on to tell something about the last annual dinner of 
this character that I attended. 

"A great deal of the success depends upon the 
toastmaster as well as on the care and thought 
which is given to working up such a dinner. I well 
remember attending what I consider an ideal an- 
nual dinner. The president of that particular com- 
pany was most thorough in his preparations for the 

(116) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

event. He believed that what was worth doing was 
worth doing well, and that a dinner of this kind 
meant something more than simply eating. I had 
a feeling as I looked up and down the big table that 
here was one business at least where there was a 
family feeling ; that, while there might be disagree- 
ments during the year between various members of 
the family, as there are in most well regulated fami- 
lies, still, there was one time, and that at this an- 
nual dinner, when you could see that there was a 
strong family pride in the organization. This feel- 
ing was brought out during the dinner, and un- 
doubtedly was taken away by the various individual 
members of the staff and carried by them through 
a good part of the year. It must have had its effect 
for good in the organization — an effect for loyalty 
and co-operation, and increased business success. 

"There is just one thing, however, about a dinner 
of this kind that to my mind is all-important, and 
that is the personality of the toastmaster. You 
cannot hire a toastmaster. Oh, you can, of course, 
but I mean that you cannot do it if you are looking 
for the highest success at a time like this. The toast- 
master must be the president of the company, and 
he must be in a manner born to that particular job, 
if you are to get out of it the greatest good and the 
greatest value. This particular dinner that I am 
speaking of had as its toastmaster the president of 

(117) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



the company, and he certainly was born to his job, 
if ever a man was. I don't mean by that statement 
that he was an orator, nor that he told good stories 
well, nor that he was witty — not any of these things, 
although he was all of them; but rather that his 
whole bearing bespoke a man born to leadership, 
sure of himself, not in an egotistical sense, but 
rather sure of where he stood because of years of ex- 
perience and study. He evidently knew the men 
who were seated around that table, and knew them 
as an open book. He was like a master musician 
who makes a dead instrument speak living words 
as he plays upon it. This particular president 
would not have made a success as a professional 
toastmaster, but he made a success as toastmaster 
at that dinner, because he evidently made a success 
of whatever he undertook. 

"I could not very well express all that I felt as 
we sat at the lunch table, but these things went 
flashing through my mind, and I felt that it would 
be a splendid thing for our own company if our 
president, in his quiet, masterful way, should pre- 
side over an annual dinner, where we might gather 
as members of one big family at the end of our 
fiscal year and talk things over. All I said to our 
president was: 'I believe such a dinner could be 
made of great value to the success of our business. 
It would do no harm at least to try it.' 

(118) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"As we walked out together the president said: 
'Supposing you and the sales manager get together 
and see what sort of a program you would suggest, 
and as our fiscal year ends next month, we could 
have a company dinner in a modest way and see 
what comes of it.' " 



(119) 



XVII. 
ON THE READING OF A GOOD BOOK. 

The vice-president and myself were a little bit 
ahead of the rest of our business family at luncheon 
the other day, and I discussed with him a little book 
that I had been reading, entitled "Capital," by Mr. 
Geo. L. Walker, editor of the Boston Commer- 
cial. It is "a popular discusion of savings, profits, 
and the rights of property ownership from a new 
viewpoint," as the author puts it, and it certainly 
is mighty interesting reading. I told the vice-presi- 
dent I didn't know how to tell him about it without 
reading the book to him. 

The vice-president is always very much inter- 
ested in anything like this, and of course isn't so 
narrow-minded as to think that "capital" represents 
a danger for our civilization. I told him that the 
author intimated that the accumulation and use of 
capital has been responsible for the rise of civiliza- 
tion, and of course there is no question about this. 
The author goes on to show why the growth of capi- 
tal should be given every encouragement, and how 
industrial progress is the product of individual sav- 
ings; and then further how the growth and re- 
sultant competition of capital benefit labor. 

"Why don't he call his book 'The People's Sav- 

(120) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

ings?' " inquired the vice-president, as I discussed 
the matter with him. 

"I think he had that in mind," I replied, "for in 
his Foreword he asks two questions about on this 
order. First : 

' 'Should the person who denies himself the en- 
joyment of many luxuries in order that he may 
save a portion of his income be forced to share his 
savings with those who have not saved?' and sec- 
ond: 

" 'Should the person who saves be permitted to 
invest his savings as he chooses and to make as large 
a profit as he can?' " 

"The reason I spoke as I did," said the vice- 
president, "is that if the book is what you describe, 
it ought not to be read by people who are capitalists, 
but rather by people who are, or think they are, op- 
posed to capitalists." 

"There is no question but what big profits for 
capital are of benefit to the entire community, — 
that is if such capital is not wasted or misused. The 
author deplores wasteful extravagance, such as evi- 
denced by luxurious living, etc., or where capital is 
wasted when it is burned up or lost in shipwrecks, 
and he makes an especially good point where he 
says: 

" 'It is not intended to decry pleasures or luxu- 
ries; but they should not be indulged in until they 

(121) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



can be afforded. This applies to the nation and 
the whole world just as it does to the individual. 

" 'The creation of luxuries and the enjoyment 
of pleasures represent consumption of food, ma- 
terials, and time. To supply and make these avail- 
able, the productive, transportation, and manufac- 
turing industries must be kept in a thoroughly 
healthy and flourishing condition.' 

"He also makes some mighty good suggestions 
under the heading: 'The Danger of Converting 
too Much Capital into Fixed Wealth.' " 

As I told the vice-president, there is no use try- 
ing to tell one man what another man has writ- 
ten, if you want to get the full value of it, and 
my advice was that he send for the booklet and read 
it. The price is only fifteen cents, the title is "Capi- 
tal," and it is published by the Dukelow & Walker 
Co., Boston, Mass. 

The rest of our luncheon party came in just as 
I was giving this name and address, and one of 
them inquired what it was that we were making 
notes on, and of course I briefly repeated what I 
had to say. 

The president turned to the vice-president and 
said: "Well, while you are writing for one book- 
let, suppose you get ten or twelve. I think I know 
where a little distribution of such matter as that is 
worth while, even to this company. Intelligent 

(122) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

reading and discussion of such matters is not only 
important to business as a whole, but it is import- 
ant to this one business institution. Modern busi- 
ness is different from all businesses in the past, due 
to the fact that we are speeding up as we never 
have done before, because of the power and ma- 
chinery which we employ. The discovery of steam 
has not only revolutionized the business world, but 
it did the job in a tremendously big hurry, and it 
means that we must, as a matter of self-protec- 
tion, educate the world in regard to business, and 
to do this properly, we must first educate our- 
selves." 

The president hit it as he always does: "We 
must first educate ourselves." 



(123) 



XVIII. 

BROADENING ACQUAINTANCE. 

"I don't think I'm an aristocrat," said the presi- 
dent as he sat down at the lunch table last week, 
"but I do want to say that I am getting awfully 
tired of restaurants in general, and of this one in 
particular. Personally, and from a business view- 
point, I think that it would be very desirable to 
make some arrangements for having our luncheons 
somewhere but in a public eating place, — not be- 
cause I believe that we are any better than the 
public, but I think that we will live longer, and 
be more prosperous, if we can find a quiet place 
where we can meet at noon to eat and talk over 
those things which concern us as a business fam- 

iiy." 

"Pretty long speech for the president," I re- 
marked laughing. 

"Wait until I'm through," he said. "Now, if 
there are no objections on the part of the mem- 
bers of this corporation, we will all of us put in 
our applications to one of the city clubs, and the 
company will pay the expense as being a good 
business investment. Now," said the president, 
"Mr. Autocrat and others, remarks are in order." 

"Make the autocrat talk last," said the sales 

(124) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

manager. "We can say everything that we think, 
and perhaps there will be nothing left for him to 
say, and in that way we can keep him quiet for 
once. I think the proposition is a fine idea. It 
would certainly be a good idea for me to take a 
customer of this company to a club to lunch rather 
than to a hotel or restaurant." 

"The sales manager is right," chimed in the vice- 
president. "Moreover, it would be a great deal 
more enjoyable for us to meet at a club than here 
in a public place. I think the autocrat would be 
especially pleased, because it would give him an 
opportunity to propound his philosophy of life with 
less interruption." 

Just then the orchestra struck up the loudest 
piece I ever heard them play, and I looked at our 
mechanical expert and grinned as I saw him writhe 
and squirm at the noise. It was supposed to be 
music, of course, but you really couldn't call it any- 
thing but noise. 

"I haven't a word to say," he remarked, "regard- 
ing the idea. I couldn't be heard if I wanted to 
say anything." 

Even the waiter didn't attempt to get our order 
until the din on the balcony in the corner of the 
dining-room had quieted down. When the racket 
had subsided, the president turned to me and said: 

"Now we will hear from our autocrat." 

(125) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



I said to the president that I thought his idea 
was a splendid one, for every reason that had been 
mentioned. I thought that beyond that, there was 
great value in what he proposed doing, not alone 
for the advantage that might accrue to us per- 
sonally in having a pleasanter place in which to 
eat, and one where we could discuss more at length 
the problems which are ours in the business world, 
and where we could bring our customers, as the 
sales manager suggested; but there is something 
of importance beyond all this. 

"We meet here," I said, "and we keep by our- 
selves. Now, it is all right for us to have our own 
little dinner party, and we perhaps can learn from 
each ofher, but there is a big and broadening in- 
fluence in coming in contact and becoming 
acquainted with the class of business men who fre- 
quent each noon any one of the clubs of standing 
here in the city. I think that it is along these 
lines where we shall get our big value. We shall 
broaden our acquaintance from day to day of busi- 
ness men who have the same, or very similar, prob- 
lems to meet that we have. We shall get their 
advice and help because we will be mutually in- 
terested in things that are similar. We shall talk 
with them and discuss questions of the day, not in 
the same way that we might with a customer or 
prospective purchaser of our product. We shall 

(126) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

have nothing to gain in the way of direct sale and 
profit from our other club members. For this rea- 
son, we shall get from them what will be of ut- 
most value to us in the conduct of our business, 
and to just the degree that we can be of help to 
the other members of the club, to just that de- 
gree will we gain from them. 

"I never did believe in joining a club in order to 
sell one or more club members something which we 
might be manufacturing. Possibly my feeling in 
this regard is due to the fact that I am so fully 
convinced that what we have is meritorious enough 
to stand alone, without being bolstered up in some 
way. Of course we may make acquaintances there 
that will lead to direct business for our concern, 
but I would not want to join a club which was 
made up of men who were members of that club 
simply for what they could get out of it in the 
way of sales. My idea of a club is an organization 
of successful, broad-gauged business men, who 
want to belong to an organization which, while it 
gives its members many conveniences in the way of 
a down-town or business home, yet stands for some- 
thing, and that something is progress along some 
line. A club that is simply a luxury and an amuse- 
ment, that stands for nothing, does not attract the 
men who are big in their ideas and broad in their 

(127) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



outlook. Those are the men with whom we should 
come in contact. 

"I have not said this for fear that the president 
will put us into the wrong club, as I have no doubt 
that he has selected just the right place for us;" 
and I named the club that I thought he had picked 
out, and I was right, which only goes to prove, in 
my estimation, that our president is generally wise 
in his judgments. 



(128) 



XIX. 
READING. 

"Where's the rest of the bunch?" said the sales 
manager, as he hit me on the back by way of a 
friendly salutation. I didn't notice him as he came 
in as I was reading a pamphlet containing a speech 
recently made by one of our leading bankers. 

"What are you reading?" asked the sales man- 
ager. 

I told him, and explained to him as briefly as I 
could what it was, and added that I thought it 
might be a good idea for him to read it after I 
got through with it. 

"Not for me," he replied. "I've got enough to do 
talking to people without wasting my time reading 
what some banker said at some banquet. I think 
there is too much talking anyway, and too much 
time wasted in reading what other people have 
talked about." 

"It might give you some ideas that you could 
work off in some of your selling talks," remarked 
the vice-president, who had just come in and caught 
the tail end of our conversation. 

"Well, they won't let me tell half of what I know 
now," said the sales manager. "What's the use of 
learning any more?" 

(129) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



"Well, in my humble opinion, as vice-president 
of this company and a citizen of our great com- 
monwealth, I think if you would read a little more 
and keep track of what is going on, you might get 
some new ideas which our customers would be will- 
ing to listen to, simply from the fact that they are 
new, rather than to hear your old story worked 
over again. I think a sales manager ought to train 
himself so that he can talk interestingly without 
being dependent upon a note book of alleged funny 
stories. A good story is all right, and very often 
helps to break the ice, especially when it is told by 
a born salesman who is after some particular or- 
der, but so many of our stories are lugged in that 
sometimes they do more harm than good." 

"Don't you think," I asked, "that an analysis of 
story telling will show — " 

"All right," said the sales manager, "everybody 
get off the board walk now and give the autocrat 
a chance to tell how it really is. Not that he knows, 
but because he wants to do his usual amount of 
talking. If I were vice-president of this company, 
I would put the autocrat out selling, instead of 
keeping him tied up at home doing so much talk- 
ing." 

The president came in about this time, and I 
saw that these remarks by the sales manager caused 
a smile to creep around the corners of his mouth, 

(130) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

for it was only last month that the mechanical ex- 
pert was sent out by the president to save an or- 
der that our sales manager had fallen down on. 
I knew that the sales manager didn't know very 
much about the circumstances; in fact, the whole 
affair was something between the mechanical ex- 
pert and the president. Anyway, I had known 
of the matter, and it gave me a cue for something 
to say. 

"If the sales manager is sufficiently interested 
in that roast duck, I will proceed with what I was 
going to say." 

"Go ahead," said the sales manager. "The duck 
is tough enough to compel me to give the gentle- 
man my undivided attention." 

"Don't spend too much thought on him as I 
want you to hear what I am going to say. The sit- 
uation is about like this : We are largely products 
of our environment." 

"Oh, cut out that first chapter," said the sales 
manager, "and get started somewhere within a 
mile of earth." 

"That's just what I am going to refuse to do," 
I replied, "and I repeat that we are products of 
our environment. Now, what is our environment? 
It isn't the postoffice, nor the drug store, nor the 
house next door, nor the farming property that is 
around the city. Our real environment is in the 

(131) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



people we meet and in what we read. Our environ- 
ment is our viewpoint. If we do not read, our view- 
point is not very high up, and we do not get a 
chance to take a good, broad look at things. I 
don't believe in a man spending all his time read- 
ing, but I consider it one of the important things 
for any man to do, no matter what his line of busi- 
ness or occupation may be. There was a time when 
the art of reading was confined to the clergyman, 
or the lawyer, or the man who did not have to work 
for a living. 

"Wasn't it Macaulay who, in referring to modern 
transportation systems, spoke of them as being 
great, after he had referred to the alphabet and to 
the printing press as being the things of greatest 
benefit to mankind? The fact of the matter is that 
we grow in just the degree that we mingle with 
the fellow men of our own time; hence the great- 
ness of railroading. But the alphabet and the 
printing press have made it possible for us to rub 
elbows with all men of all times. That is why read- 
ing is of such vast importance. 

"Now just a few words to you, Mr. Sales Man- 
ager. You think that if you pick up information 
in regard to a ball game, the stock market, and a 
few other things that you get from the daily news- 
papers, you are reading, when as a matter of fact, 
you have not started. I won't even mention the 

(132) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

reading that a man ought to do simply to broaden 
himself in a general way, but reading that he ought 
to do (I am talking to you, Mr. Sales Manager, 
so listen), as regards business in general, and our 
own line of business in particular. There is a vast 
amount of information these days with which every 
salesman should acquaint himself in order that he 
may understand and appreciate all the problems 
that his customer must meet. Having thoroughly 
posted himself along these lines, and being in a 
position where he knows what he is talking about, 
he does not need to go to a prospective customer 
and tell him a funny story to get his attention. All 
he has to do is to sit down and talk intelligently 
with that customer concerning his own problems, 
and show that he is so well informed that he can 
be of decided help to the man who may buy from 
him. In other words, he can impress the possible 
purchaser with the fact that he not only is going 
to sell him something, but that he can render him a 
tremendous service in addition, simply because he 
knows his business. 

"As a matter of fact, this is why our mechanical 
expert was able to fix up a sale where the sales 
manager fell down — because if there is one man in 
the railway supply business who knows what he 
is talking about, it is the mechanical expert of our 

(133) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



company, and he keeps himself posted. Naturally, 
to do this, he must read." 

"You put forth a few fairly good ideas," said 
the president, "but how is any one man going to 
read everything that is published these days." 

"•Well, we ought to have some one here in our 
company to do nothing but read," I replied. 

"Yes, that requires intelligence," said the presi- 
dent. 

"Don't give the job to the autocrat," broke in 
the sales manager. 

"I think I will give the autocrat the job of find- 
ing someone to do the reading, and I will under- 
take the job of seeing to it that the sales manager 
reads the good things that are passed along for his 
attention, and I am not going to spend very much 
time either in seeing that the sales manager does 
the reading that he should do." 

Then the president turned to the waiter and or- 
dered mince pie, and I felt very sure that our 
worthy president had meant what he had said, be- 
cause when he gets desperately in earnest about 
something, he almost always orders mince pie, and 
tells the waiter to bring it hot. Of course, every- 
body knows that no one orders hot mince pie un- 
less he is desperately in earnest, or at least des- 
perate. 



(134) 



XX, 

LETTER VS. TELEPHONE. 

The sales manager was very late to lunch; we 
were half through when he came in. 

"I've been trying for two hours to get the pur- 
chasing agent of the Railway on the 

'phone," 

"Something that wouldn't wait?" I inquired. 

"Yes, it would wait all right, as there is no 
special hurry, but I had it on my mind and wanted 
to give him some figures, and then I wanted to ex- 
plain them." 

"Did you say 'explain' them, or 'apologize for' 
them?" 

"Now what are you leading up to? Do you 
know that you are making a nuisance of yourself 
at these luncheons with your overlasting questions 
and your long dissertations? What is the mat- 
ter with you, anyway? Are you trying to line up 
with Socrates or some other old fellow like that?" 

Now, what the sales manager doesn't know 
about Socrates would fill a page in his expense 
account book, and he has some pretty large pages 
— necessarily so. However, I didn't let the sales 
manager disturb me, but insisted on my question 
being answered as to whether he explained the fig- 

(135) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



ures or apologized for them. You know there is a 
big difference. 

"I think I see what our autocrat is driving at," 
said the vice-president, "and it is one worthy of our 
discussion." 

"Are you fellows going to let me eat or not," 
growled the sales manager. "You are nearly 
through with you luncheon, and evidently don't 
care what happens to mine." 

"You could have answered the question by this 
time," remarked the president, "and I am very 
much interested in hearing what your answer is to 
be." 

This looked like an order from the "big boss," 
and the sales manager immediately replied that he 
did not apologize for the prices, but simply ex- 
plained them. 

"Then," said I, "why couldn't you have put the 
whole matter in a letter?" 

"Because there are too many letters written 
now," said the sales manager. "When it comes to 
writing a letter, you are certainly the longest drawn 
out performer that I ever saw. Instead of talking 
to me about certain things that we might just as 
well have discussed and gotten rid of, you sent me 
a two-page letter yesterday, and I found it on my 
desk this morning — going into more foolish things, 
and I am simply not going to answer it, that's all." 

(136) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"All right/' I replied, "but if I had attempted 
to tell you that to you over the 'phone, it would 
have been a long conversation, and I would not 
have been sure that you had gotten the figures 
straight at your end of the line, and you would had 
to have held the wire while I referred to some of 
our records to be sure that I got my end of it 
straight. It seemed to me that it would be a good 
deal better to get the whole subject in writing, so 
that you could go over it carefully and there would 
be no chance for an error. You know it is regard- 
ing that last lot of cars bought by the X. Y. Z. Ry. 
and I wanted to be sure that they got exact and 
accurate information." 

"Well, I would not be guilty of writing a letter 
like that to any railroad. They would think that I 
was sending them a pocket encyclopedia. It shows 
how little you know about railroad men if you 
think that they have nothing to do but read let- 
ters. I tell you what a railroad man wants is a 
letter about three lines long." 

"Well, I am not in favor of unnecessarily long 
letters," I said, "but why isn't it a pretty good 
proposition, even if the letters are long, to give a 
man information in written form, which will reach 
him in his morning's mail — at the time which he has 
set aside for just such things? Now, after wast- 
ing two hours of your time, you got this purchas- 

(137) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



ing agent on the telephone and gave him the in- 
formation; he could not carry it in his head and 
therefore had to make some notes on it. There 
were two men in his office when you got him on 
the 'phone; you interrupted his train of thought; 
you wasted the time of two men who were not 
interested in what you had to say; you gave your 
information in a way that was likely to be mis- 
understood, and there was therefore a chance for 
error. If you had gone to the purchasing agent's 
office, he would not have let you in at that time, 
but by the use of the telephone, you broke into 
his private office and no doubt bothered him. 

"Then here's another point, and this is why I 
asked you the question as to whether you ex- 
plained the figures or apologized for them. Call- 
ing a man up on the 'phone about a simple thing 
that you could put in a letter looks as though you 
had some reason to doubt his accepting what you 
had to say as being absolutely correct. It looks as 
if you were trying to put something over on him." 

"Would you advise our writing more letters?" 
interrupted the vice-president. 

"I will answer your question with a qualified 
yes," I replied. "I think that we should put ev- 
erything that we can into a letter, be the letter 
long or short. A letter is a positive record of 
our proposition. There is no chance for a mis- 

(138) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

understanding, and, granted that it is properly 
filed, it can be referred to whenever it is necessary, 
and it helps to make a complete record upon any 
dealing which we may have with the company or 
man with whom we are corresponding. I do not 
think that letters of this kind become burdensome. 
In fact, I think if a man would adjust himself to 
even very lengthy correspondence, he would find 
that he could save a large amount of time. Now, 
here's our sales manager; he arrives late to lunch 
all disgruntled and disagreeable " 

"Thank you," said the sales manager. 

"He has wasted his time, which was company 
time; that means wasting money, — this simply 
from our side of the fence. Later on the pur- 
chasing agent may come back and say: 'Why 
your sales manager told me thus and so over the 
'phone.' Perhaps the sales manager did and per- 
haps he did not. At any rate, we are in an argu- 
ment with the purchasing agent, and we would not 
have been if he had written him a letter." 

"Well," remarked the president, "our sales 
manager can confirm his telephone conversation." 

"Yes, but why have an unnecessary telephone 
conversation, plus the expenditure of time in con- 
firming it? Now, if the purchasing agent had 
been in a hurry for these figures, it would have 
been another proposition entirely, but, as I un- 

(139) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



derstand it, it is in regard to those two hundred 
cars which they are not going to place until some 
time next month, and the purchasing agent was 
in no hurry — simply gathering his data. I be- 
lieve we could, as railway supply business men, 
save thousands of dollars each year by making 
fewer calls — having fewer telephone conversations 
and in their place, writing more letters." 

"Oh yes," said the sales manager, "you sit in an 
office and think that you can sell our equipment 
by mental telepathy or some other fool thing. I 
want to tell you that you have got to get out and 
very nearly talk a railroad man to death if you 
are going to get an order out of him. If we tried 
some of your schemes, our competitors would get 
away with all the business. You bet they are not 
writing a lot of letters. They are 'Johnny on 
the spot 5 and hammering the desk to prove that 
what they have is the thing to buy. You have 
got to have pretty nearly the best thing in exist- 
ence if you think you can just go into a railroad 
office and show it and then write a letter about 
it." 

"I think the autocrat has made a good sugges- 
tion," said the president. "There are some of our 
appliances so vastly superior to anything else that 
we could afford to give the information which is 
needed in regard to them in a letter, rather than 

(140) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

to spend so much time talking to railroad men 
about them." 

The sales manager is generally pretty careful 
in regard to what he says to the president, but 
the telephone evidently had made him somewhat 
excited, and he said to the president: 

"I suppose the next thing that you will do will 
be to think that the autocrat is right when he sug- 
gests that we can sell railway equipment without 
salesmen." 

The president did not say very much, but he 
looked an awful lot. I felt fairly comfortable, 
and the sales manager looked fairly uncomfort- 
able, — so I'm satisfied. 



(141) 



XXI. 

SALESMANSHIP. 

The president got after me the same afternoon, 
after we had our luncheon where the sales man- 
ager and myself locked horns, and very kindly but 
firmly gave me some of his views. 

"I think you are right in the main," he said, in 
the course of his talk, which was an unusually long 
one for him, "but I do not want you to get after 
the sales manager quite so hard. Frankly, he is 
not an ideal man; he is a good deal lacking in the 
broader conception of what a sales manager should 
be. I feel that he ought to give more time to a 
careful analysis of what our equipment is, and the 
use for which it is intended in railroad service, but 
I doubt if he is ever going to be able to go into 
those things in the way that I would like to see 
him. Still, he has his good points, and as a sales- 
man, he is a very strong man." 

"In what way is he strong?" I went at the 
president rather bluntly. 

"Now this is a matter that I do not think I care 
to discuss," said the president, with an air of final- 
ity. 

The natural thing to have done would have been 
for me to shut up. I am working for that com- 

(142) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

pany, drawing my salary from them, and the pres- 
ident is the boss. It is up to me to take orders, 
and do as I am told. Now, our president has 
some of the military in him, and he thinks an un- 
der officer or private should have some of that 
feeling, "their's not to question why; their's but 
to do and die." But I have not any of that in me, 
and I am full of argument, and as the sales man- 
ager puts it, meaningless talk. So, when the 
president terminated the interview in regard to 
the sales manager I refused to be terminated, or 
exterminated, either. Now, the sales manager 
and myself are fairly good friends, and I am not 
after his job, nor do I want him to lose his job. 
However, I believe that in our line of business 
there are certain things that we ought to do, and 
when once I have a conviction on any one point I 
am going to insist on telling about my side of it. 
So, when our president shifted in his chair and pre- 
pared to go on and talk about something else (this 
was all in his private office with the door closed, so 
I had a good chance to talk without being inter- 
rupted), I said to him: 

"Do you remember the order that we nearly 
lost on the A. B. C. Railroad?" 

"Yes — you mean that five thousand car order?" 

"That's the one," I replied. "Well, what was 

the situation there?" I asked. "Our sales man- 

(143) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



ager saw three different men on that road, gave 
them all a good sales talk, but not a single one of 
those men could understand just what could be 
done with that new specialty that we had, and for 
the reason that the sales manager himself didn't 
understand or appreciate its good qualities. You 
know that if we had not been a concern of long 
standing and splendid reputation we would have 
lost out there entirely; and, as it was, if our me- 
chanical expert had not happened to meet one of 
those railroad men on the street we would never 
have had that order. It was our mechanical ex- 
pert who got it, and our sales manager lost it." 

"Why do you bring that up?" asked the presi- 
dent. 

"Simply because you brought up the question 
of the sales manager and the way in which he han- 
dles things." 

"I said that we were through discussing that, 
didn't I?" A 

"You said that you were," I replied. 

He looked at me for a minute, as much as to 
say: "If I am through that settles it, doesn't it?" 
But our president is too big a man to become net- 
tled at my stubbornness ; then, too, possibly he has 
become accustomed to it from long years of put- 
ting up with it. At any rate, I told the presi- 

(144) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

dent just how I felt about things, and that was 
about as follows: 

"A business needs to be pruned for the good of 
its growth and development, in about the same way 
that you need to prune a tree. Even some of the 
bigger limbs on trees sometimes have to be lopped 
off, and I think the same thing is true in business. 
Now, our sales manager is a typical modern sales- 
man. He keeps on good terms with all the railroad 
officials — knows them all — gets into their offices, 
and spends plenty of time on each order, but to 
my notion, he has not waked up to the fact that the 
railway supply business is changing — that today 
you have to go to the railroad man with the goods 
and not with an explanation. Railroad companies 
have to watch the expenditure of every penny, and 
they want to be definitely shown just what they are 
going to receive for the expenditure which they 
make. They want to know for the immediate pres- 
ent and for the remote future. Now, our sales 
manager is lacking in appreciation of the problems 
confronting a railroad man. He is not technical 
enough to grasp the finer good points of our ap- 
pliances, and it is only by the supplementary work 
done by some of the others that we get part of the 
orders to which we are entitled. I have an idea that 
we have come to a point now where the kind of a 
man to send out is not so much one gifted with the 

(145) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



instincts of a salesman, but one who has the ability 
to clearly and concisely convey to the proper rail- 
way officials just exactly what we have for sale, 
and no more and no less." 

I told the president all that I had in mind, and 
he listened very carefully. 

"Now, we are not going to continue this argu- 
ment," said the president. "I appreciate the en- 
thusiasm and loyalty which I always feel sure of 
in you, but I want to ask you just one question: 
How would you have handled the order for the X. 
& Y. Ry.?" 

I saw in a minute what our president had in 
mind. There was a railroad man who bought from 
his friends. He is a jolly good fellow, and being 
that, he bought from other jolly good fellows, and 
I knew very well that our company never could 
have sold him that order except through our sales 
manager, and I knew also that our sales manager 
didn't spend fifteen seconds on the value of our 
equipment. He just went into that railroad man's 
office and told him three or four funny stories, and 
they had a grand Ha! Ha! and hit each other on 
the back, and the railroad man said: "That's all 
right, Bill, your company is the biggest in the busi- 
ness, and I guess I won't go far astray if we specify 
you on this order," and they did. However, such 
railroad men are getting to be the exception, and 
not the rule. (M§) 



XXII. 
ABOUT EXHIBITING. 

We all lunched at the club for the first time last 
week, and it would have done your heart good to 
see the smile of satisfaction upon the face of the 
mechanical expert as he realized that our days of 
talking against tin-pan music were over. The 
president said he would sign the first ticket; after 
that we could all sign our own tickets. I noticed 
the vice-president looking at the menu card very 
carefully ; then he began talking to the waiter in an 
undertone. 

"Now don't pay any attention to what he tells 
you/' I said to the waiter. "We have joined this 
club for various reasons, the most important being 
that we want to break the vice-president of the club 
sandwich habit, and you just inform him that this 
club doesn't serve club sandwiches except at break- 
fast. The vice-president would never get up early 
enough in the morning to get down to the club 
for breakfast, and if he did, he would be alone 
and welcome to his club sandwich." 

We were all there that first day, — the president, 
vice-president, sales manager, treasurer, shop su- 
perintendent, mechanical expert, and the "auto- 
crat." I do not think I ever mentioned our treasurer 

(147) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



before, but if there ever was a man who was the 
salt of the earth, then it is our treasurer. He is 
very quiet, but exceedingly well informed ; he hasn't 
much to say, but what he does say is worth listen- 
ing to. He is the one man in the company to whom 
we all go with our troubles and perplexities, and 
he always has just the right word at the right time. 
You know we always look upon most treasurers 
of big corporations as being "tight-wads," but our 
treasurer isn't. He never pinches pennies, and 
never criticises the expense account; he never says 
that he thinks we are spending money unwisely; 
you never hear him complain that collections are 
bad. In short, he is the most optimistic man of 
the company, and if that is not something unusual 
for a treasurer, I don't know what is. 

We talked about a little of everything that first 
day at the club. The sales manager was especially 
delighted because he saw three of his customers in 
the dining room, and we had to hang on to him 
to keep him from going over and buying their 
lunches. 

"Don't you understand," I asked, "that these 
men come to this club simply so that they can have 
the privilege of buying their own lunches? Never 
pay for a customer's lunch at a club of which both 
you and he are members." 

"I guess the autocrat is right," said the president. 

(148) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"It would be fine if the fellow who buys from 
you would offer to pay for your lunch," said the 
shop superintendent. 

"Well, some of them do," remarked the me- 
chanical expert, "and you can deduce two differ- 
ent things from a man's doing it. One is : If he 
pays for your lunch, he has the feeling that he 
will never buy anything from you. The other is: 
He feels so sure that he will never buy from any- 
body but you that he does it for that reason." 

"Is it going to be worth while exhibiting this 
year?" asked the vice-president when we were half 
way through luncheon. 

This started quite an argument as to the value 
of our having an exhibit. Strange to say, the sales 
manager had no remarks to make. Exhibiting is 
something that really belongs to his department 
and he should have been the man to talk. Perhaps 
that is just the reason why he listened. 

"Do you know," I said, addressing my remarks 
to the president, "that our advertising has always 
been a big problem, and I think that the oppor- 
tunity to exhibit at a railroad convention is really 
one kind of advertising that we hardly can afford 
to be without? We have the opportunity of meet- 
ing a great many railroad officials, and at a com- 
paratively small expense. We can come to a better 
understanding in regard to many little things that 

(149) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



need to be ironed out occasionally, and there is a 
good chance for making new acquaintances and 
explaining to them what we have and what we are 
exhibiting." 

"I am not so sure about it as I used to be," said 
the president, who waited until he thought I was 
through. " Twenty years ago, exhibiting at these 
annual railroad conventions was a fine thing for 
this company, but the number of these exhibits held 
in connection with conventions has been multiply- 
ing each year, until it is becoming a good deal of 
a burden to be represented at all of them. Have 
you any idea," he asked the treasurer, "what was 
the total cost of our least expensive single exhibit 
last year?" 

"It was around eighteen hundred dollars," re- 
plied the treasurer. > 

"Did that include the charge for the time which 
was spent by the representatives of the company?" 

"No, that was not included." 

"How much do you think that would amount 
to?" 

"Well, not very much more, — six or seven hun- 
dred dollars." 

"About twenty-five hundred dollars then," said 
the president, "it cost this company at one of our 
smallest conventions. I have no idea what all the 
convention exhibiting during the year is costing us, 

(150) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

but I imagine it is a good deal of money. Now, 
we will agree with what the autocrat has had to 
say as to the theoretical value of exhibiting; but 
practically, it is getting down to about this point: 
We are spending a good many thousands of dol- 
lars, plus the time that we give. This time has 
to be taken away from other things, which are gen- 
erally of importance. I am beginning to wonder 
if the trade exhibition idea is not being overdone." 

"They had fine automobile shows at New York 
and Chicago,' said the shop superintendent. "It 
seems to pay those people." 

"Well, possibly it may pay, and I don't doubt 
but what it does pay in the automobile trade," said 
the president, "but the railway supply business and 
the automobile business are two entirely separate 
and distinct businesses, and what may be a good 
thing for one may not work out to advantage for 
the other. The automobile business is new; the 
railway supply business is getting to be an old busi- 
ness. A great deal of that which we sell has be- 
come standard — well known — and thoroughly ap- 
preciated. We do show a few things during the 
year, but whether they really amount to enough to 
warrant the tremendous expenditure or not is a 
grave question. Were we a new concern, and had 
something that was new, radically new, I would 
look at the matter in an entirely different way. 

(151) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



I think that a new railway supply and equipment 
company, that has something entirely new and dif- 
ferent to sell, can to advantage exhibit for a year 
or so at conventions which are attended by railroad 
men who are interested in that particular line of 
appliances, but I question if the old, standard con- 
cerns are getting very much out of it." 

"Why do we exhibit then?" I asked. 

"We are exhibiting because the other fellow 
does," broke in the mechanical expert, and as usual 
he hit the nail on the head, — at least I think so, and 
I believe the president rather looked at it in that 
way himself, for he turned to the treasurer and said 
to him: 

"I wish that you would bring over to our next 
luncheon a complete statement as to what it costs 
us for each exhibit at each convention which we 
attend, keeping separate the various items of ex- 
pense from the amount expended in the way of 
salaries based on the time spent at the convention 
by the various members of this company. Then," 
said he, turning to the rest of us, "I want each one 
of you to come here with a carefully prepared list of 
orders which were directly or indirectly influenced 
by our exhibits at any of these conventions. See 
if we can learn definitely just what we have been 
getting out of exhibiting during the last year." 

(152) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"Why have an exhibit every year?" asked the 
mechanical expert, 

"That will be a good question for us to answer 
when we get all the data on our exhibiting, and 
we can discuss it at some future luncheon," replied 
the president to this question. 



(153) 



XXIII. 
DUTY OF BUSINESS MEN. 

"Where is that genial and kindly soul, the hon- 
orable V. P.?" sang out the sales manager as he 
walked over to our table. 

"He is attending a noon luncheon of the honor- 
able commercial body of our town, which I think 
is discussing today something as to the duties of a 
business man." This explanation from the me- 
chanical expert. 

I think he would not have said it if the presi- 
dent had been there. The sales manager is apt to 
be less- flippant when the head of the business is 
on hand. 

"I am sorry," said the sales manager, "to have 
him absent, because I like to see him study the 
menu card carefully, and then fill up one line of 
the ticket in his beautiful handwriting calling for 
a club sandwich. Further than that, I am sorry 
to have him wasting his time in talking about the 
duties of a business man. A business man has got 
just one duty, and he ought to pay strict atten- 
tion to that." 

"What is that duty?" asked the shop superin- 
tendent, all innocently, as if the sales manager had 
any idea what duty was anyway. 

(154) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"Why, a business man's duty," said the sales 
manager, "is to buy at the lowest possible price and 
sell for the highest, and cut out politics and all this 
foolishness, and attend to his own living — keeping 
enough of a bank balance so that if he wants any- 
thing he can go and buy it. If a man has the good 
round dollars he can buy almost anything he wants. 
A man can buy anything with money." 

I had been waiting for an opportune time to cut 
into the sales manager's conversation without seem- 
ing rude, but when he made that remark I had to 
break in without any regard as to whether he was 
through or not. The idea that man can buy any- 
thing for money, — the most monumental lie that 
was ever invented. 

The president came in and sat down just as I 
was making my statement in regard to the monu- 
mental lie, and that was all he caught. 

"Steady there, autocrat," he said. "Aren't you 
getting just a little bit excited?" 

"Possibly I am, but I would be a whole lot more 
excited if I had said liar.' So far, I have been 
impersonal in my remarks." 

"What's caused all the excitement?" he queried. 

"The sales manager said that a man can buy 
anything with money." 

"Well, he can buy a good many things," mused 
the president. 

(155) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



"Yes, but he can't buy everything/ 5 I reiterated, 
"nor anywhere near it. In the final analysis, hu- 
man beings are looking for happiness in this world. 
I do not say that they all look for it in the same 
way, but they are all looking for it, and there is 
not one in a hundred who is getting real happiness 
by buying it.' 

"How did you happen to get on this subject?" 
inquired the president, after he had ordered his 
lunch, and was ready to take part in the conversa- 
tion, or listen, as is his wont. 

"Well, it is just this way," said the sales man- 
ager. "The vice-president has gone to a commer- 
cial organization luncheon to discuss the duty of 
the individual business man to business as a whole, 
and I contend that it is a waste of time, and that 
it is only foolishness for a business man to be wor- 
rying about anything like that, — a lot of this talk 
about business men going into politics and reform- 
ing the government, and a few of such things. All 
nonsense. Then I made the statement that a man 
could buy anything he wanted with money, and 
the autocrat said that that was a monumental lie. 
That's about where we are, isn't it?" he said, turn- 
ing to me. 

"Just about," I admitted. 

Then the president made about as long a speech 
as I ever heard him make, and when he got through 

(156) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

the sales manager didn't have anything to say. In 
fact, he appeared to be looking for a hole into 
which he might crawl and pull the hole in after him. 
It made me think of a story I heard when a boy, 
about the meanest man in town, who got caught in 
a very heavy rain storm on the way home one day. 
This was out in the country evidently. He crawled 
into a hollow log to keep dry during the down- 
pour, and the wooden log swelled from the water, 
so that he got caught in there and thought he was 
going to be squeezed to death, I guess. Anyway, 
he began to think over his past and realized what 
a mean man he had been. Then he remembered 
something he had said to his wife that morning 
that was particularly mean and contemptible, and 
it made him feel so small that he slipped right out 
of the log and went home. 

What I started to tell about was what the presi- 
dent said. I wish I could tell it all as he said it. 
He began way back by saying that primitive man 
had lived alone, by himself, and he only grew out 
of his savage state because he began to be a social 
creature, mingling with other men, and it was the 
grouping of men that had given rise to civiliza- 
tion, and that one man owed a duty to another man 
and to his country. In fact, it has been the his- 
tory of the world that a man's first duty is to his 
country. 

(157) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



Then he went on to show how it was the duty 
of every business man, if business in general was 
attacked, to give of his time and his money in ward- 
ing off these attacks on business in general, — just 
as much reason, he said, for a business man be- 
ing patriotic to business as for a citizen of a coun- 
try to have patriotism enough to help defend his 
country against attack. 

"Not only that," he said, "but we have another 
duty outside of protecting business, so far as we 
who are business men are concerned. He referred 
especially in this to the owners of business. 

"A hundred years ago the percentage of men in 
business was very small. Men, women, and chil- 
dren, — eyerybody, gained a livelihood by working 
on the farm. The percentage of people who lived 
in any other way was very small. But today, the 
great majority are dependent upon business for 
their bread and butter, and when business, individ- 
ually and collectively, suffers, the employees of 
business suffer, and they suffer much more than the 
owners, because the owners have some capital to 
fall back upon, whereas the employee is dependent 
upon his wage." 

Then the president went on and eulogized the 
vice-president for his broad outlook on things, and 
his generosity in giving of his time and thought 
and energy for the benefit of business as a whole 

(158) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

and for those dependent upon it. He hit the tab- 
ble pretty hard when he said : 

"It is nothing more nor less than selfishness on 
the part of business men if they are interested only 
in their own little business. Our vice-president is 
a man who has not a selfish hair on his head, and he 
is constantly at work in a way that will be of bene- 
fit and greatest good for the largest number. If 
we had more business men of his character and cali- 
ber, our country as a whole would be a great deal 
better off." 

Our president looks pretty deeply into things, — 
a whole lot deeper than you would give him credit 
for, simply because he does so much listening, but 
I rather think that he, in common with a whole 
lot of other big business men, are realizing that 
things are not in an altogether satisfactory con- 
dition. We have had a business depression now, 
long existing, and the uncertainty as to the future 
has become very acute and very widespread. Now, 
the prosperity, welfare, and consequent happiness 
of all the people are directly dependent upon busi- 
ness and business conditions. The average busi- 
ness man throughout the country has heretofore 
been indifferent to and inactive in matters of legis- 
lative and administrative action affecting his in- 
terests, and of course his interests are everybody's 
business. I am wondering if there is not going to 

(159) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



be an awakening on the part of business men to 
the potent influence which all organizations of 
business men, large and small, might have. Cer- 
tainly business, which history has shown to be es- 
sential not only to our daily existence, but to the 
development and maintenance of our higher civ- 
ilization, should be fostered and encouraged. 

Probably the sales manager has become exceed- 
ingly tired when he gets this far, and perhaps I had 
better stop, but it certainly looks as if we ought 
to do something. 



(160) 



XXIV. 

ABOUT SALARIES. 

The president and I lunched alone the other day. 
The treasurer said he was busy and would just run 
across the street to the lunch counter; the shop 
superintendent made the same excuse. The vice- 
president, the sales manager, and the mechanical 
expert were all out of town. As a matter of fact, 
business is getting better, though a lot of people 
don't want to admit it. However, I wasn't going 
to talk about business conditions, as I wanted to 
tell of the conversation that I had with the presi- 
dent. 

He takes up some things with me that he doesn't 
discuss with the other members of the company, 
and perhaps he does this, because I am the "auto- 
crat," so termed by the rest of our business family. 

I have no objections to giving some information 
about the little business family group that lunches 
together whenever they can. Our plant is located 
in a suburb of one of our large manufacturing 
centers. We build and sell railway equipment; — 
no, I would rather not tell you just what. Our 
general office is out at the plant, and our sales 
office is in the city. No one at the plant has a desk 
at the city office except myself, as I am in and out 

(161) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



a great deal for our president. With this informa- 
tion the reader will have to be content, except I will 
say this : I am not making up a lot of yarns out of 
whole cloth, but am telling of our noon- day conver- 
sations just about as they really occur. We do not 
always meet at the club. In fact, when the whole 
family is together we generally have lunch in our 
own dining room at the plant. Not all of my state- 
ments are exactly true, as, for instance, what I am 
saying this week in regard to the treasurer eating 
lunch across the street. The truth is — there isn't 
any lunch room across the street, and he wouldn't 
eat there if there were one, because, as I said, we 
have our own dining room. With this much ex- 
planation, I want to tell you what the president 
had up with me, and it may be something that 
interests every railway supply concern, and I will 
be careful to give you a truthful report of our 
conversation. 

One of the foremen in the shop is named "Fred." 
I won't tell his full name. He has been with us 
about eight years, — a mighty good chap. He 
handles everything right up to the queen's taste. 
I would like to digress for a moment and speculate 
as to how this expression "the queen's taste" orig- 
inated, and if I thought the sales manager were 
going to be at home to read this, I would do it, 
because I know how disgusted he would be. At 

(162) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

any rate, the president said that our shop super- 
intendent had said that Fred had come to him for 
a raise in salary. 

"Now," said the president, "what am I going 
to do about it? You know that we have had 
any number of applications here lately for salary 
advances. Some of them have been granted and 
some of them have not. What are we going to 
do about it? It seems as if there ought to be some 
way of determining what a man's salary should 
be, — some regular way of arranging for it. What 
are your ideas?" he asked. 

I hesitated for a moment, — not very long be- 
cause the president likes to have a quick answer, 
and went back at him with this question : 

"Do you think that the method pursued in our 
army in regard to the pay of officers, privates, etc., 
is the correct one?" 

The president looked at me hard for a moment, 
and then said: 

"I catch your point, and it is a mighty good 
one. What you are after is raising a man's posi- 
tion and not his salary." 

"That's it exactly," I said. "Some of our uni- 
versities never pay a man a salary. It is the posi- 
tion that is paid the salary. A man may be pro- 
moted from one position to another, but his salary 
is not raised. I suppose this is done on the theory 

(163) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



that the university, with its income, can afford to 
spend just so much money upon its teaching force, 
and if they have a teacher who has unusual ability 
and worth, they promote him to a higher professor- 
ship, which carries with it, of course, a larger 
salary. This is following somewhat the idea in the 
army, where the private is paid so much, a non-com- 
missioned officer so much more, and certain stipends 
for the regular officers according to their grade." 
"Well, just give me an outline of how you think 
we could handle that in our own company. I see 
possibilities in it," said the president. 

"Now your own salary is decided upon by the 
Board of Directors," I replied. "They know just 
how much money this company is making, and they 
say: 'Not that you are worth just so much money 
a year to this company/ but they do say, in 
effect, that this company can afford to pay so many 
thousands of dollars a year for a president. It is 
my recollection that your salary has not been 
changed for a number of years. Really, we have 
established a precedent in this matter of paying so 
much money to the position rather than to the in- 
dividual. After the directors have decided this, 
they elect a man as president of the company whom 
they think is competent enough to direct its affairs. 

"Now, perhaps I came next, being the autocrat. 

(164) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

Why should not my position be worth just so much 
money to this company?" 

"Well, that is where I am afraid you are going 
to fall down on your theory," said the president. 
"I can see where it might apply to some of the 
other men in the business, but your relation to 
this company is quite different. Your position 
really changes according to the individual who oc- 
cupies it. When you first took up your present 
duties, you were really my chief clerk, handling 
many details for me, but assuming very little re- 
sponsibility. Today there is no man in the com- 
pany who has any larger responsibilities, outside of 
myself, than you have. If I had taken that trip 
around the world which I had planned on when 
the war in Europe broke out, you would have been 
shouldering all the responsibility," said the presi- 
dent, "so you see it would be a pretty hard matter 
to define or limit your salary by your position." 

"Well," I replied, "the vice-president legally as- 
sumes your responsibilities when you are away, 
and that is one of his official duties in a corpora- 
tion." 

"Legally, you are right, but practically, no. Our 
vice-president has his duties very clearly defined, 
and possibly the correct title for him would be gen- 
eral manager." 

"Well, then, do you think that you could limit 

(165) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



the vice-president's salary, or make it a fixed 
amount?" 

"Yes, I think I could," said the president. "The 
position of vice-president and general manager of 
this company is really worth just about so much 
money." 

"Wouldn't you pay our vice-president more 
under any circumstances?" 

"Yes, I would if the business became much 
larger, and the board of directors decided that the 
position of president called for a larger salary, but 
not otherwise." 

"Well, what would we do with our mechanical 
expert?" I asked. 

"There is another case that in some ways is as 
hard as yours," said the president. "As a matter 
of fact, our mechanical expert is worth more money 
to us than we are paying him. Really, our com- 
pany is getting to be quite a large institution, and 
I have been thinking seriously of dividing the vice- 
president's duties and making two vice-presidents, 
in which case I think the mechanical expert, rather 
than the sales manager, would fit into the new posi- 
tion. I believe that answers the question that I have 
had in mind for some time. You make a note to ar- 
range for a position of second vice-president at 
the same salary as the vice-president's, and notify 
the mechanical expert that he has been promoted." 

(166) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"Well, what can we do about the position of sales 
manager? Is that position under all circumstances 
worth just five thousand dollars a year, or should 
it be made six or four, or should it depend upon 
the individual?" 

"I think the sales manager's salary should 
stand," said the president. "I think that it is all the 
position is worth." 

"■Well, but supposing we could get a sales man- 
ager who could develop a larger percentage of 
business for us, what then? We might have to pay 
more to get a real, first class salesman." 

"No, I do not think we would," said the presi- 
dent. "I have been talking with (and he men- 
tioned the names of several men who are presidents 
of other railway supply companies), and I find 
that none of them are paying their sales managers 
any more than are we." 

"What we had in mind," I reminded the presi- 
dent," was the question of the foreman by the name 
of Fred." 

"Yes, and I have not forgotten him, and I think 
that our superintendent needs an assistant, and I 
think I know about what that position ought to be 
worth. It means, however, more than doubling 
Fred's salary to pay him what the position is 
worth. Now, do you think that Fred is really a 
very valuable man?" 

(167) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



I told the president some things that I had 
known of Fred's doing that were very compli- 
mentary to him, and the president said : 

"Well, I am going to put into immediate effect 
this idea of paying so much to the position and 
not to the man, and you write the necessary letter 
to Fred and tell our shop superintendent of our 
actions." 

This was the result of our little confab at lunch 
time. I don't know how it is going to work out. 
Perhaps you cannot have a hard and fast rule on 
things like this, but I think there is some value in 
the idea, and for what value there is in it, I pass 
it on. 



(168) 



XXV. 

SAFETY FIRST IN RAILWAY 
SUPPLIES. 

"What do you think of the safety first move- 
ment?" asked the vice-president as he sat down 
to lunch at the Club the other day. 

"I think the idea is fine, and if I were in your 
place, I would adopt it at once. It may save you 
from eating another club sandwich." 

"Do you know," said the vice-president in all 
seriousness, "I think you work that club sandwich 
racket a little too far, and for the good of your 
own reputation as the writer of the lunch table 
Autocrat, you had better forget it." 

The vice president doesn't get peeved very often, 
but I saw that he was just a little bit nettled by 
my remark. Anyway, he didn't order a club sand- 
wich. I have an idea that a man is better off by 
having a little variety in his diet instead of al- 
ways eating the same thing, and while I don't 
suppose that the vice-president has eaten enough 
club sandwiches in the last tw r o years to affect him, 
still heretofore he has always been exceedingly 
good-natured, and I never before knew him to be- 
come peeved over a little thing. Now, doesn't it 
all go to show that possibly his disposition has 

(169) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



been slightly affected, and for the worse, by too 
liberal a consumption of club sandwiches ? 

This by way of explanation, and for the benefit 
of the few who take the time to read what is said 
in these columns each week, we will drop the sub- 
ject of club sandwiches. I didn't say anything on 
this order at the lunch table. It is just what I was 
thinking about as I wrote out the discussion that 
same afternoon. 

Replying to the vice-president's question, I said 
that I thought safety first was a splendid slogan, 
and more so because it was such an all-inclusive 
term. It demands so much of railway owners, 
railway officers, and railway employees — the 
highest motives, the greatest care, and the most 
conscientious service. 

"Then too," I added, "I think that the term in- 
cludes those of us in the railway supply business. 
There is such a thing as safety first equipment." 

"Just what do you mean by that?" asked the 
mechanical expert, now the junior vice-president. 

"Well, I mean equipment that is going to do 
what we say it is going to do. 

"Oh, you don't mean then anything that could 
be connected with signaling, or air brake, or brake 
beams?" 

"No, not necessarily, though it might be. What 
I have in mind is this: You sell a man a casting. 

(170) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

It should be a dependable casting, simply another 
word for a safety first casting. We are selling 
railroad supplies, and almost everything that is 
used in the way of railway equipment must be de- 
pendable equipment — in other words, safety first 
equipment." 

"I think there is a whole lot more to this idea of 
safety first," said the vice-president, "than simply 
having a man at a crossing stay awake, or an engi- 
neer to keep from going to sleep." 

"Then relaxation is opposed to safety first?" 

"Yes, relaxation on duty would be," replied the 
vice-president. 

"Well, perhaps I might term it carelessness 
then," I said, "for if there is anything that is 
diametrically opposed to the whole idea of a safety 
first movement, it is embodied in the one word 
'carelessness.' It is with the idea of eradicating 
everything which would naturally come under that 
heading that the safety first movement was orig- 
inated and promulgated. 

"In such a field as that of modern transportation, 
the opportunities are so vast and so seemingly 
boundless for possibilities of carelessness in every 
and any direction, that the field of safety first 
seems to be an ever broadening one. The methods 
used by those who are applying safety first to rail- 
roading seem to embody the correct principle in 

(171) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



that it is a campaign of education, a continual call- 
ing attention to causes and results. Many move- 
ments somewhat similar operate successfully for 
months or years and then outlive their usefulness. 

"The safety first movement, however, is differ- 
ent, as only when human beings arrive at perfec- 
tion can there be no further field for safety first. 
Carelessness offers ever a challenge to safety first, 
and safety first must stand on guard as untiring 
and unceasing in its work as that which is opposing 
it. Not only do the big things count, but the little 
things also. 

"It is just as much a part of safety first to prop- 
erly equip the car or locomotive that goes into serv- 
ice as to properly operate that car or locomotive 
in the train. Improper equipment, or careless- 
ness in the manufacture of it, may be, in fact is, 
a menace to both property and human life. 

"A brake beam may fulfill all the ideals involved 
in safety first, and may be carlessly applied. The 
best brake beam may be improperly hung. Such 
things have been known to occur. It is simply an 
illustration of that kind of carelessness which is 
opposed to safety first. 

"They shoot a sentinel for sleeping at his post, 
in other words for carelessness — for the reason that 
human lives depend upon his care." 

"That's a pretty good exposition of safety first," 

(172) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

said the sales manager. "Greatly to my surprise, 
you have said something while you were talking. 
I think that safety first is a very all-inclusive term. 
It guarantees; it has in it an idea of loyalty; then 
the following of it establishes confidence; it be- 
comes a custom, and custom holds men pretty well 
in line. If it is customary to do a thing, a man 
gets to do it without thinking." 

"The term stands opposed to the chance taker," 
I said, "and there are chance takers beside the men 
who actually operate the railroads. The chance 
taker is also the man who buys, and buys know- 
ingly, defective tools or defective equipment — a 
direct violation of safety first principles." 

"I think we could very well give a little thought 
to safety first," said the senior vice-president, "and 
see to it that not only what we manufacture is all 
that it should be, but, having manufactured any- 
thing, we should see to it that it is bought and 
used for the purpose for which it is intended." 

"Well, how are you going to do that?" asked 
the sales manager. "There are a lot of railroad 
men, who, knowing we make such good stuff, will 
use some of our appliances for heavier service than 
that for which they are built. They are just taking 
chances on our equipment being a little bit better 
than what we say it is. I don't see how we are 
going to prevent it. We have done all that we 

(173) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



could do, safety first or anything else, if we manu- 
facture with care and integrity." 

"It is a pretty fine question," said the vice-presi- 
dent, "but I believe that simply from a business 
standpoint, it would be well for us to be very in- 
sistent upon having our appliances used strictly 
for the purposes for which they are manufactured. 
Of course this should be done in justice to us, but 
there is more than simply this company's welfare 
to be considered. There is protection to human 
life, and the wrong use of a right appliance in 
railroad service may, in fact does, jeopardize 
human life, and is directly contrary to the principle 
of safety first, which the railroads are pusing with 
such Yigor." 

As we walked away from the lunch table, I said 
to the senior vice-president : 

"Don't you know that the way of the reformer 
is hard?" ' 

"Yes," he said, "I do, and I give up reforming 
every once in a while, and then I get to thinking 
about things and go at it again." 

As I thought about it afterwards, I suppose the 
way of the reformer is hard, but if we don't have 
a few reformers, the way for the rest of the world 
would be a sight harder. 



(174) 



XXVI. 
METHODS OF SALESMANSHIP 

I had been out of town for a week or ten days, 
and even the sales manager seemed to welcome me 
back to the lunch table, when I arrived a little late 
yesterday. 

"This has been rather a peaceful gathering for 
some days back," he remarked. "I have had no one 
to cross swords with, and I am frank to admit I 
rather missed you. Of course, after you get started 
again on some of your long-winded dissertations, 
I suppose I shall feel sorry that you are not off 
on another trip." 

"What sort of a greeting are you giving the auto- 
crat?" asked the senior vice-president. "Sort of a 
left-handed compliment, isn't it?" 

"Do you call that a left-handed compliment, or 
a back-handed compliment?" inquired the shop su- 
perintendent. 

"At any rate," said the sales manager, "the auto- 
crat isn't such a bad fellow at heart. He talks too 
much, that's all. Occasionally he does say some 
things that are worth while and to the point. I 
don't know but what it would do him good to get 
out on the firing line once in a while and get up 
against railroad men, and see a little of the real 

(175) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



thing. It takes a lot of theories out of a fellow." 
"I had a very interesting talk," I said to the 
rest of the luncheon party, "with the vice-president 
and general manager of sales of a well known sup- 
ply company. I met him on the train coming 
home. In lots of ways he is an ideal man for the 
position that he holds. He's worked his way up 
from the ranks by sheer force of energy and innate 
ability. As I sat talking with him, I couldn't help 
but think of Emerson's phrase: 'The world be- 
longs to the energetic' He was telling me some- 
thing about his selling methods and the manner 
of handling his men, — mighty good ideas, all of 
them. Strange, isn't it, that the buffet smoker of 
a modern railway train is a great place for the 
exchange of confidences, and you really get to 
know a man better in a day's trip than you would 
in a whole year meeting him casually? The corner 
grocery store used to be — I suppose it is now, for 
that matter — the meeting place for a discussion of 
everything. That was superseded, however, by the 
smoking compartment in the Pullman car, and as 
we have graduated from one luxury to another, the 
final evolution of the corner grocery debate is the 
heart to heart talk in the buffet smoker. I came 
to know that man more thoroughly, — know his per- 
sonality, his character, than I had ever known it 
before. I want to tell you: dig down deep in a 

(176) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

man — a successful man, and you find that he not 
onty has business ability, but he is a man of char- 
acter as well. Nine times out of ten, a man who 
succeeds has got something besides simple business 
ability.' 5 

"Say," said the sales manager, "get down to earth 
and tell us what he was doing to get business." 

I hated to read the sales manager a lecture just 
the minute I returned home, but what was I to do ? 
I told him: "My dear fellow, don't you understand 
that salesmanship isn't learned from a set of in- 
structions or a book of rules? It is a matter of 
character, native ability, training, persistence, 
everlasting hard work, and mixed up with it — 
good, common, ordinary horse sense. What that 
man told me was mighty suggestive. It might have 
some ideas for us. We cannot follow what he is 
doing. We can only learn from what he has done. 

"He was telling me about a talk that he had with 
one of his salesman — a man who is somewhat in- 
clined to argue. Now, this vice-president and gen- 
eral manager of sales, as I have said, came up from 
the ranks, and came up from the ranks in railroad- 
ing, and he knows a certain department in rail- 
roading as you and I know our A-B-C's. He just 
lived it for years. Now, in the supply business, he 
is selling to men who are in the same department in 

(177) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



which he got his experience. If he doesn't know 
how to talk to those men, nobody does. 

"Well, as I was saying, knowing the railroad 
men as well as this fellow does, he was giving some 
advice to one of his salesmen in regard to his sales 
methods. He told me that he had found that this 
particular man — an awfully good fellow, was 
somewhat prone to argue. Now, as he put it, it 
was not argument that should be used with a rail- 
road man, but explanation, education, and simple 
telling of facts." 

"I tell you you've got to argue with some of 
these railroad men," said the sales manager. "I 
don't believe this fellow told you anything of the 
sort. You are just trying to bolster up your own 
theory by bringing in this suppositious case." 

"I think I will have to rule that remark out of 
the evidence," said the president quietly. "The auto- 
crat generally tells the truth as he sees it, and I 
don't think he would sit here and deliberately 
falsify in order to gain a point in an argument 
with you." 

"Well, this fellow backed up what he had to say 
about arguing anyway. In connection with the 
demonstration of the appliance which he is selling, 
he is using a little testing machine which he carries 
around with him. He told me of setting it up in 
a railroad man's office just last week and showing 

(178) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

him how to operate it. Then, when the testing 
machine is set up, he says to the railroad man: 
'Here's my appliance. You can get the appliances 
of some of my competitors and just go to it. I 
have got some other people to see, and I will let 
you work this out to your own satisfaction.' He 
never argued in favor of what he had; all he did 
was simply to educate — to assist the railroad offi- 
cial in getting at the facts in the case." 

"■Well, I still contend," said the sales manager, 
"that that's taking pretty long chances. A man is 
a fool to do a thing like that." 

The president was getting uneasy again, and I 
was going to shift the subject when he took the 
conversation in hand. 

"I think we should make every effort to force the 
buying of railway supplies along just such lines as 
the autocrat has been outlining. If we are forcing 
the sale of our own specialties when they are in- 
ferior to others, we are going directly contrary to 
the law of the survival of the fittest, and we are 
the almost direct cause of economic waste. Why 
shouldn't we stand aside and let this law of the 
survival of the fittest take its due course, and in- 
instead of spending so much time on forcing the 
sales end, let us spend a little more time in im- 
proving the specialties or appliances which we do 
sell. This man who our autocrat speaks of certainly 

(179) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



made the strongest kind of an argument with that 
railroad official when he gave him every possible op- 
portunity of demonstrating which was the best ap- 
pliance in that particular line. He evidently feels 
absolutely sure that he has the best there is — that 
is, the fittest appliance to survive, and in spite of 
all we could do, we are not going to be able to 
change, in the final analysis, the law that has been 
working since the time that this world was chaos, 
and before." 

There was quite a large amount of silence around 
the table after the president got through. Some- 
times you get more out of sitting still for a few 
minutes with a group of men than you do out of 
talking. Well, the wind-up of that luncheon was 
one of those occasions. 



(180) 



XXVII. 
A REAL PROBLEM. 

"The meeting is called to order," said the sales 
manager, as he came in. "The Autocrat has the 
floor, and we will now listen to his usual weekly 
dissertation on everything in general and nothing 
in particular." 

"I know how much the sales manager enjoys 
hearing me talk, but I am not going to gratify 
his wishes in that direction," I replied. "I have 
something to read to you today. No, it isn't a 
pamphlet," I said, heading the sales manager off, 
and I pulled a letter out of my pocket, which I 
had received, and after telling the waiter that of 
course I wanted short cake, I read the following 
letter to our little group at the luncheon table: 

"To the Man Who Writes the Autocrat at the 
Lunch Table, c/o The Railway Review, Chi- 
cage. 

"My Dear Autocrat: — 

"I have been reading your articles for some 
months. You are evidently in the railway supply 
business, all right, and know what is going on, and 
some of the things that we are up against. As a 
fellow supply man I am going to ask your advice 

(181) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



in regard to a certain situation. Here is my 
story.* 

"I have been selling the X Railway for a good 
many years. The purchasing agent is a good 
friend of mine ; I might call him a business friend, 
as I do not know him outside of his railroad posi- 
tion, and I think his friendship for me is due en- 
tirely to the fact that for many years I have given 
him a good close price on everything that I have 
sold him, and I have always sold him a good article. 
He is one of those purchasing agents who looks be- 
yond the mere purchase price, goes pretty care- 
fully into maintenance costs, and knows that he 
is buying the cheapest and in the most economical 
way when he buys something that is going to give 
service. As he told me one day not long ago, he 
would rather pay $100.00 for something that will 
give five years' service, and $10.00 maintenance 
cost, than to pay $10.00 for something, and have 
$100.00 maintenance cost in the same period. 
While in each instance the total price to him for 
five years would be $110.00, still in the article with 
the higher first cost he is getting almost continuous 
service, while with the other he is losing money by 
the fact that he is not getting the use out of the 



♦Naturally we have eliminated the name of the railroad and the 
actual appliances sold, and the prices at which they are sold. How- 
ever, the main facts are exactly as given to us, and probably present 
a not unusual situation in the selling of railway appliances. 

(182) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

article that he should have. I think he made a 
very good point in that while both articles might 
total the same cost at the end of five years, he rec- 
ognized the fact that maintenance costs entail addi- 
tional costs, due to the fact that the particular 
appliance was not earning money as continuously 
as it should. Therefore, in one case his investment 
was earning high dividends for the railroad, and 
in the other case it was not earning any. 

"I have said this much about the purchasing 
agent of the road because I want you to thor- 
oughly appreciate that he is a first class buyer. 
You probably know him, and this explanation may 
have been superfluous. 

"A few weeks ago he asked me to bid on a certain 
appliance of which I had sold him a good many in 
the last three or four years. The department which 
uses this appliance has kept careful record as to its 
service qualities, and the purchasing agent told me 
of his own accord of the thousands of dollars that 
they had saved by using my appliance, as against 
what they had previously used. While I put in my 
bid of $64.00, at the same time one of the general 
railway supply houses, got through some of the 
clerks in the purchasing agent's office, the price at 
which I had sold previously, which was $62.00, and 
they put in a bid of $61.50. 

"The purchasing agent called me in and showed 

(183) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



me the figures. 'Now/ he said, 'you have been giv- 
ing us good stuff, and I would rather see the order 
go to you, and you can have it at $61.50 for each 
of the appliances.' I told him that I would go 
over my figures again and see what I could do, 
but that the price was pretty low, and that the 
material which I had been using was a little bit 
higher than when I had sold him the last lot. My 
price of $64.00 showed just 38 cents less profit 
than when I sold them the last lot, but recognizing 
the fact that business is poor, and for that reason 
railroad buying is a little bit closer, I had really 
come down on my price to the road. 

"Now the article which I had sold them, and on 
which I had bid was not something that is patented. 
Therefore, the railroad could get bids on my ap- 
pliances and have them duplicated by someone else, 
but they had to furnish them with my blue prints, 
and get my working drawings, from which to make 
the patterns for the malleables. I have on hand 
quite a large stock of these malleables, and I was 
willing to put them in at a closer figure than any 
one would want to make them up for, and I knew 
this other concern could not duplicate my ap- 
pliance, with patterns and other things to make in 
order to handle the order at any such figure as 
$61.50, because I could not do it myself, even with 
the advantage of some stock on hand and every 

(184) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

facility for doing the work. I could just about 
move my material for $61.50, and I know it would 
cost them more than that. I delayed on the mat- 
ter a few days, and meanwhile this supply house 
that had put in the lower bid called me up and 
said to me that they had gotten the order and 
wanted to have me make up the appliances, and 
they wanted me to do it for $61.00 each. 

"I went over my figures again and found that I 
could fill the order, as the actual cost to me would 
not run much over $60.80. Now what was I going 
to do? I don't want the X Railway to buy these 
appliances from someone else; I felt it w r as only 
reasonable that I should get something more than 
a mere trifle of a manufacturer's profit, and I 
knew this other concern could fill this order, but I 
knew they could not fill it at the time promised on 
the delivery. But you know how it is. You can 
make some excuse and get away with it, and then 
this concern would be in position in the future to 
sell to this particular railroad. 

"There is also a possibility of cutting down on 
the quality of the appliance in a way that would 
not be noticed, probably not for two or three years, 
and then the wearing qualities would begin to 
show up and the railroad would find they were 
not getting quite as good value. 

"Now the assistant to the president of the X 

(185) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



Railway told me of his own accord, not many 
months ago, of the very satisfactory service that 
my appliances had been giving and that they felt 
under obligations to me for having given them 
such a good article and at so reasonable a price, 
and he told me of the thousands of dollars that 
they had actually saved, and he said to me: 'Now, 
if you ever want any help on this railroad you 
come to me. I am disposed to recommend dealing 
with supply manufacturers who give us the kind 
of treatment that you have given us.' He said he 
had spoken to the president of the road about 
what I had been doing for them. 

"Now you have given a lot of suggestions in 
your articles that have been of value to me, and 
I am wondering what you would do in this par- 
ticular case if it was your own company that was 
up against a similar proposition. I have been in 
the supply business a good many years, and I have 
always fought for a good quality in what I sold 
to the railroads, and a reasonable profit to my own 
company. I have never made what I would call a 
large profit. I have felt that in following this pol- 
icy that there was certain business that I was not 
going to be able to obtain, but that there was cer- 
tain other business that I would get, and get reg- 
ularly, from discerning buyers. Now, of course, 
I can go in and take this order and meet competi- 

(186) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

tion, but if I am going to do this in all cases I am 
going to be out of business in a few years, because 
profit of this amount is not going to take care of 
my overhead. 

"What would you do? Would you go to the 
purchasing agent and talk the thing over with him, 
or would you go to the assistant to the president 
and lay the facts before him, or would you go 
direct up to the president and show him the situa- 
tion? I feel that what a supply man ought to do 
is to conduct his business in such a way that it 
will w r ork to the advantage of the railroads in the 
long run, and give him a reasonable profit, so that 
he may continue in business. I would appreciate 
it very much if you would write me just what you 
think of the situation, and if you have ever come 
up against a similar proposition. 
"Yours very truly, 

"A Brother Supply Man." 

"Well," said our worthy president, "what are 
you going to tell him?" 

"That's what I don't know," I replied. 

"It is pretty hard to determine for another man 
what he ought to do," said the junior vice-presi- 
dent, "but do you know I am inclined to think that 
the time is coming when we are going to take just 
such matters as this directly to the head of the rail- 

(187) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



road, and we are going to find out whether he 
wants good material, serviceable appliances and 
that which will be most profitable to the railroad 
in the long run, or whether it is to be the policy 
of his road to buy what is cheap. It is my idea 
that a company like our own, for instance, which 
is the largest there is in this particular line, can 
sell cheap stuff cheaper and make a larger profit 
than some of our piratical and cut-throat competi- 
tors. We can do this in spite of the fact that we 
do all the originating and developing, and our 
cheap competitors simply copy. Of course, we 
have to spend the money on all the experimental 
work in order to advance the state of art in our 
particular line, and the other fellow has saved all 
this expense, but the very fact that we can do this 
means that we can also do our work at less cost than 
the other fellow. Any railway supply concern 
that can originate and develop is also in a position 
where they can keep down shop costs and over- 
head. An incident like this makes a man feel like 
going to the president of a railroad and having it 
out with him." 

"I believe," said our shop superintendent, "that 
it would be a good idea for us to go into the manu- 
facturing of some cheaper design of our own ap- 
pliances and be in a position to sell not only on 
merit but also on price." 

(188) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"We haven't told the Autocrat yet/' said the 
president "what answer to give his correspondent, 
and I am not going to say what his decision should 
be. He can figure that out later. But so far as 
this question of selling articles on their price is 
concerned, this company is unalterably opposed 
to selling cheap stuff. I know it's the theory that 
we should sell the buyer what he wants, but I have 
been in this business now pretty nearly forty years, 
and the policy of the company has remained un- 
changed during that time. I remember when I 
was an office boy, hearing the first president of 
this company say to one of the salesmen: 'While 
we are conducting this business to make money, 
we are conducting it on honor, and we will not get 
up any cheap appliances, simply to meet compe- 
tition. It is a bad thing for this house, and it's 
worse for the railroads.' " 

I answered the supply man's letter the same 
afternoon and told him something of our conver- 
sation at the lunch table, but further than that I 
did not go. 

How is a man going to advise another man just 
what he ought to do? 



(189) 



XXVIII. 

ABOUT TELEPHONING AND LETTER 
WRITING. 

When the sales manager came in he pulled out 
a newspaper clipping. 

"Here's something for the autocrat," he re- 
marked, " 'Forty-four Years a Banker, Never 
Had a Phone.' : Then he went on to read some- 
thing from a daily paper. 

It seems that the man who had never had a tele- 
phone had been president of an insurance com- 
pany for forty-four years, and had never allowed 
a telephone in the institution. He had permitted 
typewriters only on condition that he could not 
hear them. He has retired now at the age of 
eighty-five years — quit the presidency, but re- 
mains with the business as chairman of the board 
of trustees of the company, which has prospered 
to a great extent under his direction. 

"I don't think the autocrat would go quite as 
far as that with his telephone ideas," said the 
senior vice-president, "and as I remember it, what 
he had up for discussion was more the right use 
of the telephone. There is no question — that 
everything is bound to be abused — every good 
thing, and I admit that the telephone is abused. 

(190) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

I think what our autocrat was pleading for was 
the right use of the telephone, and the right use of 
letter writing, and was comparing the two." 

"It seems to me," said the junior vice-president, 
"that the question of personal visits, letter writing, 
and telephoning is finally a matter of individual 
judgment. Under the conditions that make one 
desirable, the others would not serve as well. Per- 
sonally, I am inclined to favor letter writing, as I 
think that it is highly desirable and important to 
encourage the making of records. The weakness 
of letter writing is that many situations demand a 
letter longer than most people will give the nec- 
essary attention to. It seems to me that almost 
every business man feels a wave of discouragement 
overwhelm him when he picks up a four or five- 
page letter. My own idea is that in a case of this 
kind, it is a frequently good plan where it is pos- 
sible, as it often is, to write two letters. 

"The usefulness of the telephone lies mostly in 
being able to take care of a matter quickly and 
gives an opportunity to confer at once, as a letter 
does not. The telephone, however, seems to be a 
breeder of bad habits and to inspire a very odd 
and unjustified demand for immediate and com- 
plete attention. Unless one is prepared to answer 
fully all questions that may come up, it is a good 
plan to avoid the telephone and use the letter. 

(191) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



"I suppose the idea is that when the millennium 
approaches, one of the first rules would be to shoot 
the man who has a switchboard operator call you 
and keep you waiting until he finds it convenient 
to ask you to do him a favor. Last week I was 
talking to a large purchaser who was telling me 
that he had stopped buying steel from a certain 
company because the salesman persisted in having 
him called on the telephone before he (the sales- 
man) took the trouble to talk to him. This is a 
general abuse, and possibly if you could make 
some suggestions along this line that would result 
in a slight improvement, you might in time have 
yourself canonized." 

"Our junior vice-president seems to have some 
rather violent ideas on this question of telephon- 
ing," remarked the president. "Possibly he has 
been having some experience such as I had last 
week. Speaking about this president of the life 
insurance company made me think of it. Some 
one called me on the telephone and said that their 
general agent had asked him to call me up and 
make an appointment with me for going very care- 
fully into the matter of the kind of protection that 
I would want to secure from his company. He 
remarked that he thought his general agent's sug- 
gestion was a good one, and would I kindly make 
an appointment some time in the forenoon of the 

(192) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

next day, when I could give him an hour in which 
to discuss this matter, which was of such great 
importance to me? I said to him: 'What are you 
talking about?' He then continued along the 
same line of glittering generalities, and finally I 
managed to deduce the fact that he wanted to talk 
life insurance to me. I am carrying all the life 
insurance that I really ought to have and need, 
and I told him that I would not be interested ; but 
he was very insistent, and would not let go of the 
telephone receiver, and as I was exceedingly busy 
on that bid for the Y. Z. Railroad, which we had 
to get off on an early train, I simply hung up the 
receiver. 

"In three or four minutes my telephone bell rang 
again, and this time it was a gentleman who said: 
'I don't know you personally, but a great many of 
my friends in the railway supply business have 
spoken very highly of you, and I have often wanted 
to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance 
personally. I don't think a man of your general 
reputation and standing wants to put himself in 
the position where he is so discourteous as to hang 
up the telephone receiver.' Here was my life in- 
surance solicitor again, and I promptly shut him 
off by telling him that I did not care to discuss the 
subject. Nothing, however, would squelch him 
but simply hanging up the receiver. 

(193) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



Now, he represented one of the larger life in- 
surance companies, and as I hung up the receiver, 
I made a mental note that never, under any cir- 
cumstances, would I take out insurance with that 
company, if I had to go without it. There cer- 
tainly is an instance of a very decided abuse of the 
telephone. I am glad to see salesmen — used to be 
a salesman myself ; I care not what the man is sell- 
ing, but one can't always drop everything to re- 
ceive a salesman. Here is where I think a letter 
should be written. If a man wants to talk even 
insurance to me, I am willing to make an appoint- 
ment. I do not, however, want to have him call 
me on the telephone and insist on it." 

"Don't you think," said the senior vice-presi- 
dent, "that a salesman feels that in these days of 
competition he must do something to break his 
way in, and that a letter will not get him anywhere 
with the average man?" 

"Oh, I am not attempting to lay down any iron- 
clad rules for anyone," said the president. "I 
think we are discussing what can be done to fur- 
ther an approach to ideal conditions, and, as our 
junior vice-president remarked, this question of 
personal visits, letter writing, and telephoning is 
finally a matter of individual judgment. You 
cannot treat all men alike. I think our autocrat 
has done one thing in bringing this question up, 

(194) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

and that is to emphasize the care which we should 
exercise in dealing with our customers, especially 
the first approach or interview, because we may 
entirely spoil our chances with some railroads if 
we do not approach them in the right way." 



(195) 



i 
i 



XXIX. 

THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS AS BAD 
AS THEY SEEM. 

Most treasurers are not optimists; they are pes- 
simists. I wonder what there is about being treas- 
urer of a company that makes a pessimist out of 
a man. I can see where a treasurer might become 
pessimistic if he did nothing but pay out money, 
and was getting very little in, or if he was con- 
tinually paying out more money than he received, 
but where a man is treasurer of a company that 
is making a good profit, I should think he would 
naturally be an optimist. Our treasurer, however, 
would be an optimist anyway. He is that kind of 
a fellow. I only wish I could put down in print 
just how much I think of that particular officer in 
our company, and then give his real name, but I 
don't dare do it. Anyway our treasurer is an 
OPTIMIST and I am telling the printer to put 
it all in capital letters. 

Yesterday at lunch we were all of us doing a 
lot of pessimistic talking and the treasurer saying 
never a word. Finally he got down to his cigar, 
pushed back from the table, tossed his napkin over 
in front of him, and leaning back said, "You don't 

(196) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

really expect good business all of the time — right 
up to the top notch." 

"Top notch nothing," interrupted the sales 
manager, "We would be satisfied if business was 
even a little less than good." 

The treasurer did not mind the interruption at 
all; he simply smoked on and when the sales man- 
ager was through he continued. 

"Last week we got such an order, and such an 
order, both of them pretty good sized, and then 
three smaller orders," mentioning the roads and 
the amount. "So much for last week. The week 
before that we got," and he mentioned several good 
orders, good for any time in any business year and 
then he kept on listing what we had been doing. 
Of course, our company may have been doing a 
good deal better than a whole lot of others in the 
railway supply business, but I confess I was a 
little bit surprised at the list of orders which the 
treasurer enumerated, covering the period of the 
last few months. 

"Don't you think," asked the senior vice-presi- 
dent, "that we are apt to get a little bit mixed up 
in our talks about optimism and pessimism? The 
business is going to run along in just about a cer- 
tain way following the law of supply and demand. 
Our customers can overbuy and we can oversell. 
There will have to be the lean periods as well as 

(197) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



the prosperous times, and we have got to conduct 
ourselves accordingly. 

"Probably we all recognize the fact that in ad- 
dition to the law of supply and demand that we 
are being affected just now by some man-made 
laws, which, of course, always interrupt things to 
a certain extent, but the overdoing of legislation 
is what will be responsible sooner or later for do- 
ing away with much of this legislation, and then 
we are going to get back to more normal condi- 
tions and better business. I was reading last night 
something from Emerson and just made a note 
of it to read it here at our luncheon. I don't re- 
member just where it was, but here is what Emer- 
son said: 'The level of the sea is not more surely 
kept" than is the equilibrium of value in society by 
the demand and supply ; artifice or legislation pun- 
ishes itself by reactions, gluts and bankruptcy.' ; 

"When did Emerson write that?" asked the 
president. 

The senior vice-president didn't know, but I re- 
membered the quotation and told our president I 
thought it was some time along in 1840. 

"Seventy-five years ago," mused the president. 
"The same old world, isn't it? We don't change 
very much." 

"Seventy-five years is not a very long time," I 
remarked, "when you set it alongside of the 

(198) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

hundred million years more or less that man has 
been here on this little planet," 

The sales manager said he had to be getting back 
to the office and got up to leave. I notice that he 
generally gets away when the conversation gets 
around to anything on this order. 

"What is it that makes some people squirm when 
you get to talking about ten million year epochs? 
We have had them, probably will have them, and 
after the man who has written on 'The Autocrat 
at the Lunch Table' has been dead for ten million 
years, and the printer who printed it, and the man 
who has read it, have also been gone and forgotten 
that same length of time, the same law of supply 
and demand will still be in operation, and probably 
what Emerson said will at that time be more or 
less true. There isn't much question but what it 
will take more than ten million years for everybody 
to learn good horse sense. What we will have to 
learn probably is how to adjust ourselves to the law 
of supply and demand, and at the same time to the 
instinct of self-preservation, for undoubtedly this 
instinct of self-preservation is responsible for this 
legislation, which no one denies is the cause for the 
present business conditions." 

I talked quite a little along this line, partly be- 
cause I believed it, and largely because it made the 

(199) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



sales manager squirm. I don't even know whether 
our president liked it or not. 

As we got up to go, the president remarked, 
"The great trouble is that we are placing the em- 
phasis upon the wrong thing — upon the less im- 
portant rather than upon the more important." 

I think I know what the president had in mind, 
and I am sure the sales manager did not. 



(200) 



XXX. 

DOES DEVELOPMENT EXPENSE PAY? 

The junior vice-president looked tired and wor- 
ried yesterday, and I found the answer for it a few 
minutes after we had sat down at the lunch table. 

"Say, Junior V.-P.," said the shop superin- 
tendent, "what are you doing staying down at the 
plant all night ? The watchman said that you were 
working there until half past four this morning, 
and he found you sleeping on the bench in the 
laboratory when he went around there about half 
past six." 

The junior vice-president made no reply. I think 
he was too tired physically to argue with anyone, 
or to talk about anything. I knew what he had 
been doing. He had been spending the company's 
money and his own good health in order that he 
might give to the railroads the opportunity of buy- 
ing a better appliance for less money, and I said 
that I sometimes wondered if it was all worth 
while, because after we go to all the trouble and ex- 
pense of developing something new and better, we 
are faced almost immediately by a competitor with 
something that looks like what we have. 

"Don't talk that way," said the treasurer, "or we 

(201) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



will change your name from 'autocrat' to 'pessi- 
mist.' " 

"No, but here's the point," I said. "You know 
that we have a certain competitor that, as soon as 
we put this particular improvement out among the 
railroads, will copy it so far as they dare because of 
our patent protection, and then will sell it as being 
the same as ours, only of course much cheaper. 
They can afford to sell it cheaper for two reasons. 
One is that they have not spent any money on ex- 
perimental work, and you as treasurer ought to 
know that our laboratory is a pretty expensive 
proposition. Our competitor has no such thing as 
a laboratory, and he has saved all that money." 

"Oh, yes, I know," said the treasurer, "but rail- 
road men appreciate what we are doing, and they 
will buy from us because they feel that in the long 
run they will get more for their money." 

"Don't you believe it," said the sales manager. 
"We will put in a bid on this thing that the junior 
vice-president has worked out, for instance, with 
the A. B. C. Railway, and our competitor will put 
in a bid on his junk, and the A. R. C. Railway will 
buy from the competitor." 

"Yes," said the senior vice-president, "that may 
be true, but that railway is not the only one in ex- 
istence." 

"No, but there are a lot of A. B. C. Railways," I 

(202) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

replied, "and we have to face the fact that for many- 
years our company has spent money, time, energy, 
and thought in development work, for which the 
railroads generally are not willing to pay. We are 
continually studying, — devising ways and means, 
not only of developing something new, but improv- 
ing what we already have. It is true that this is a 
service to the railroads, but railway officials are no 
different from other buyers. No man wants to pay 
money for service. It seems to be an instinct with 
buyers to pay according to the size of an object, 
and not because of what the object itself may be, or 
what merit it has. 

"A doctor may bungle along for six or eight 
months with a patient, — spend a lot of time, — fur- 
nish him with a lot of medicine, and in spite of the 
bungling, the patient may get well by the end of a 
year. Now, the average patient does not object to 
paying that doctor two dollars a call for fifty calls, 
— that is one hundred dollars ; and yet, if that same 
patient had gone to some doctor who knew some- 
thing, and that doctor had said: 'Why, what you 
need to do is thus and so/ and the patient had been 
well in a week, that same patient would be impa- 
tient, and worse than that, if the second doctor had 
charged one hundred dollars, which is the same 
price as was paid the first doctor. There is no use 
in talking; — the average individual would rather 

(203) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



pay a doctor one hundred dollars for fifty calls, or 
fifty bungling prescriptions, than pay the other doc- 
tor one hundred dollars for one prescription that 
was right. It looks as if he were getting his money 
too easy." 

"But we are not in the doctoring business," said 
the treasurer. 

"No, but we are in a business," I replied, "where 
we should give service, and the work that our junior 
vice-president did last night is simply an example, 
— one small instance, of what we have been doing 
for twenty-five years in developing our products. 
I do not believe such development work as we are 
doing is appreciated. I think the railroads are get- 
ting into the same frame of mind that is true of 
every American citizen. We are buying cheapness, 
— not quality; we are buying appearances, — and 
not realities." 

"Well," said the treasurer quietly, "what is the 
largest concern in our line ? What company manu- 
facturing products similar to ours has the largest 
sales? Who is selling the railroads of this coun- 
try fifty to sixty per cent of the particular ap- 
pliances that we manufacture?" 

I confess I quieted down a little when our treas- 
urer put it just that way, because, as a matter of 
fact, while we have competitors that are pirates 
and steal our ideas as far as possible, — that origi- 

(204) 






AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

nate nothing, — that simply sell on price alone, the 
cold, hard facts in the case are that at the end of 
each fiscal year, we find that we have done more 
business than any of our competitors, and I guess 
this is the answer. 



(205) 



XXXI. 

RECIPROCITY IN FAVORS. 

"Theory is an awfully convenient thing, and is of 
use a good many times. We might theorize quite 
at length on reciprocity in favors and arrive at 
some very interesting conclusions — not only inter- 
esting, but true. Actualities, however, are more to 
the point, and we generally have to make use of 
them in order to prove our theory. Herbert Spen- 
cer is a great fellow for taking one of his theories 
and proving it with a homely illustration. There 
is so much to be said about reciprocity in favors, 
and so much theorizing to be done over it, that we 
will "skip immediately to the illustration, which will 
possibly point to the moral just as satisfactorily, 
and a good deal more briefly." 

"The autocrat is breaking out into song, isn't 
he?" said the sales manager. 

Even the president had to smile a little, as he re- 
marked that he thought possibly I might overdo 
the theorizing. 

"All right," I replied, "I will attend to eating 
my lunch." 

"No, go on," said the senior vice-president, 
"with one of your 'homely illustrations. 5 We would 
like to hear it." 

(206) 



J 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"All right," I replied, "I will be good natured for 
once and give you an illustration. A certain rail- 
road was in the market for certain appliances to go 
on a new lot of freight cars which they were buying. 
Before any bids were invited for the cars or the 
specialties that went on them, our company was 
called in to talk with this road about certain par- 
ticular appliances, in the manufacture of which we 
are the recognized leaders, for the reason that we 
have been at it longer, and have sold more than any 
other concern in a like line. What was wanted of 
us was our advice in general in regard to the use 
of the appliances in question. Our experience was 
of value; our investigations, extending through 
many years, were worth money to this railroad buy- 
ing the cars. In order to prove the statements 
which we made, it was necessary for us to go to a 
considerable amount of trouble and expense. To 
the best of my recollection, our expense account on 
that particular lot of cars ran a trifle over $400.00. 
We proved to the railroad that our advice to them 
was correct." 

"That was the P. Q. R. Road," said the junior 
vice-president. 

"Yes, and that's the last time they ever got any- 
thing for nothing from us," said the shop superin- 
tendent, "and the only time that I am ever tempted 
to do a poor job, or give poor quality, or inferior 

(207) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



construction, is when an order comes through from 
that tight fisted, narrow minded ." 

"You are going it pretty strong, aren't you, shop 
superintendent?" asked our good natured treasurer. 

"Let the autocrat continue," said the president. 

"Then the bids for the cars were put out, and we 
bid our regular price. However, our competitor 
got the business, because his bid was a trifle lower 
than ours. Now, our competitor didn't make as 
good an appliance as we were making, and the rail- 
road admitted as much, but as the material of which 
this specialty was constructed was the same in the 
case of the competitor's appliance as it was in ours, 
and as their design of construction was fairly good, 
the railroad felt that the expert knowledge which 
became theirs because of our service would enable 
them to make use of the inferior appliances, and 
they decided to let the contract to the competitor 
and save a little money. 

"Without getting back at all to theory, let us 
analyze the situation for a moment and see at what 
point we will arrive if this becomes a settled policy 
with all railroads. This railroad in question is not 
a small road. It is one of the larger roads ; its man- 
aging officials are looked upon by the public as be- 
ing energetic, capable and broad-minded in their 
policies." 

(208) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"Broad-minded — nothing," said the shop super- 
intendent. 

"The autocrat didn't say that they were broad- 
minded," replied the treasurer for me. "He said 
that they were 'looked upon' as being broad- 
minded." 

"You are going to get me off my track," I said 
to the shop superintendent, "if you interrupt me in 
this 'homely illustration.' The road is an old one, 
and an influential one. The policy, moreover, is 
not an unusual policy with them. Mind you, in all 
this we are not criticising the railroad at all. They 
do what any purchaser should do — buy equipment 
that will render satisfactory service, and buy it at 
the lowest price. 

"But haven't we got to go a little bit further in 
our buying than simply the question of price, and 
the service rendered by the article bought? Is not 
the railroad in the position of buying, not only ma- 
terial from the manufacturers of railway supplies, 
but are they not also buying expert knowledge from 
the men who solve their problems for them? If the 
special instance referred to is to become a settled 
policy on the part of all railroads, what is to be the 
effect? Are the better railway supply concerns to 
be encouraged, or those of only mediocre ability? 

"Most assuredly a railway supply manufacturer 
cannot afford to solve a given problem for the rail- 

(209) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



roads, make a better article, and sell it at the same 
price as the 'plagiarist.' True, we have our patent 
protection, but this does not always mean a com- 
plete protection. The railway supply manufac- 
turer may spend time, energy and money in the de- 
veloping of things that cannot be patented. It is 
very apparent that there are many cases in which 
railroads are having trouble with some special ap- 
pliances, where investigation on the part of manu- 
facturers develops the fact that the general design 
is correct, but that the material is at fault. No 
patent is going to protect a manufacturer against 
the time spent in finding out that a malleable cast- 
ing used in a special place is better than pressed 
steel. Yet it sometimes costs money to find these 
things out. 

"The problems of the railroad managements are 
many. A portion of their problems are being 
solved by the railway supply manufacturers of the 
better type — those manufacturers who originate — 
investigate — who believe in honesty in manufacture. 
Are manufacturers of this type going to go out of 
business because railroads are not willing to recipro- 
cate by placing orders with such concerns at a 
slightly higher price? 

"This problem is up not with one railway supply 
concern, but with many of them. Many an earnest 
talk is had behind the closed doors of the railway 

(210) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

supply business of this country as to whether their 
policy for the coming year will be to discharge cer- 
tain high priced men who are spending their time 
in finding some way of doing things better, and stop 
this policy of improvement, and for the future sell 
what they have on a purely competitive price basis. 

"Reciprocity in favors — the acting upon it means 
progress in railroad construction, and what is more, 
it means real economy in the long run, and the ap- 
parent saving in buying the cheapest will be more 
than offset by a real saving in buying the fittest ap- 
pliance from the concern who is manufacturing it 
from expert knowledge and long experience." 

"I cannot help but agree with everything you 
say," said the president, as I paused after my long 
dissertation. "It is really a very serious proposi- 
tion. I sometimes wonder if we are not working 
for our competitors. I suppose most railway sup- 
ply manufacturers have to take risks in making ex- 
penditures for educational purposes and to help 
railways to decide important matters. They are 
experts whose services are generally at the service 
of railway companies without charge. 

"Sometimes, however, this service involves large 
expenditure of high-priced time, and of money. 
No bargain can be made in advance, and the manu- 
facturer, engineer or contractor takes his chances 
on getting anything back. Sales expenses are un- 

(211) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



doubtedly largely increased by this kind of work; 
and in most cases the selling company has no just 
cause of complaint if it does not get the order. 'It's 
all in the day's work.' 

"Nevertheless, where work is honestly done and 
expenditures made either on the direct request of 
the prospective buyer or with his co-operation, fair- 
ness demands that their expenditure of time and 
money be remembered and taken into account in 
letting the order or contract. It is hardly fair that 
the concern which puts out its resources liberally, 
should find that the result inures to the benefit of 
a competitor who steps in at the last moment and 
having incurred no expense in the preparatory 
work of investigation, makes a lower price to take 
away the business." 

An old-time friend of the president's came over 
to our table just as he was talking, and, catching 
the drift of our conversation, he said : 

"I want to add something to your discussion 
which comes quite recently from an experience in 
my own company. 

"We were engaged in certain specialized con- 
struction work which required that plans and draw- 
ings be made for each special job, depending on 
local conditions. At the request of the chief en- 
gineer of a large system we made such plans for a 
considerable number of locations. The work ran 

(212) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

through the best part of a year and involved a cost 
to us for traveling expenses, drafting, etc., of about 
$2,400, not including any charge for the time of 
our engineers and estimators. No fault was found 
with our plans — in fact they were approved and 
substantially used, although not by us. Competi- 
tors who had made no such plans or practically any 
expenditure, stepped in and took the work. We 
had proved to the railway that the work was neces- 
sary and economical ; the other fellow reaped where 
we had sown, and we received no thanks or recogni- 
tion. 

"I do not think that the chief engineer was 
wholly to blame. When the time came for placing 
the order, higher authority told him to figure with 
so-and-so on the job. We had the cold comfort of 
bidding on some portions which we did not get, be- 
cause the other fellow made his bid on the whole 
proposition and without figuring any preliminary 
engineering expense. It has always seemed to me 
that the engineer ought to have stood up for fair- 
ness to us and explained all the circumstances to 
the man higher up. Our work ought not to have 
given us any 'cinch 5 on the job; but it certainly 
ought to have been placed in some way, to our 
credit. We have always found a reputation for 
fair dealing to be a valuable asset, and a railway 
company in the long run would also find it to be so. 

(213) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



In this particular case it cut itself off from what- 
ever advantage there might be in having us bid on 
future work." 

"I wish I could get some fellows I know to read 
what the autocrat will say about this luncheon con- 
versation today," said the sales manager, "but I 
don't believe it would do any good. I heard a col- 
lege professor lecture the other night on 'How to 
Bring Up Children/ and he prefaced his remarks 
to the parents by saying that he didn't give the talk 
with the idea that it would do any good. His whole 
purpose was to be entertaining and make money 
on the lecture platform. He said that parents are 
always ready to listen and enjoy hearing any one 
telling how to bring up their neighbor's children." 

"It brings back the old proposition, doesn't it?" 
said the senior vice-president, ''as to whether a pur- 
chaser buys by the pound or by the amount of 
service to be rendered, — by looks and appearances, 
or because of intrinsic merit?" 



(214) 



XXXII. 

PROPER ATTEXTIOX TO APPLIAXCES 
IX SERVICE. 

"A little of that roundhouse physic of neglect" 
was the way in which a railroad man put it to us the 
other day at lunch. It was well put, — a mighty 
suggestive phrase of what is going on so far as rail- 
way appliances are concerned on many roads. We 
are bound to have a whole lot of it, and railway 
supply manufacturers should expect it, and, ex- 
pecting it, should design and construct whatever 
equipment they sell keeping this always in mind. 

We had a very pleasant luncheon that day, be- 
cause the railroad man was a mighty fine fellow, — 
broad and liberal in his views, — looking for final 
results and not for immediate appearances. The 
only thing which occurred to mar the pleasure of 
having him as a guest was the fact that the senior 
vice-president said that he wanted to apologize for 
the autocrat in that he might seem somewhat 
peculiar, due to the fact that he confined his diet 
entirely to shortcake. 

Xow, I had promised to let club sandwiches 
alone, and the senior vice-president therefore took 
unfair advantage of me. However, I came out on 
top, as our railroad friend was a devotee of straw- 

(215) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



berry shortcake, and worshipped at its shrine with 
the same enthusiasm as did I. 

To go on, however, with our conversation at the 
lunch table, it was admitted that proper attention 
to appliances in service we never get in railroading 
or anything else. Some men take good care of their 
automobiles if they have them; other men do not. 
They don't even hire anyone to take proper care of 
them. The same is true regarding a horse. The 
man who now owns an automobile is the man who 
used to own a horse. From some owners, the horse, 
harness, and rig received the proper attention ; from 
others they didn't. 

All through railroad service, attention of one 
kind or another is given to the appliances in service. 
It depends to a certain extent upon the manage- 
ment of the road, but to a much larger extent upon 
the individual employee. The ideal condition for 
railway equipment is that it should be self-main- 
taining, self-operating, fool-proof, and a good 
many other things ; but with the increasing demands 
for better railway service on the part of the public 
and shippers, and together with it, an increasing 
demand for a smaller charge for the better service, 
it becomes increasingly imperative on the part of 
railroads that proper attention be given to ap- 
pliances in service. 

"But, after all," said our railroad friend, "is it 

(216) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

up to the railroads entirely — this question of giv- 
ing the proper attention to appliances in service? 
Isn't this something that even from our own biased 
viewpoint, we must admit, is also up to the railway 
supply fraternity as well? Naturally, a man who 
buys something is supposed to take care of it. But 
there are certain things that are sold which, if not 
sold under a guarantee, are sold in a way where 
there is implied a guarantee that they will perform 
the proper amount of service for a certain number 
of years. 

Railroading is so diversified; its problems are so 
many and so complex; the railway manager is de- 
pendent so much upon the expert knowledge and 
service of the manufacturer of railway supplies, 
that it would seem as if a man who manufactures 
and sells any equipment to railroads should be re- 
sponsible for its problems in service, that is to a 
certain extent. The railroad's responsibility should 
be in that it will see that the thing which is used is 
given fair usage — that is in so far as possible in an 
industry where unfair usage is bound to occur, due 
to the very nature of the business. Locomotive ap- 
pliances especially need careful watching, in addi- 
tion to proper care. 

Is it not fair to expect from the manufacturer 
some attention to the appliance which he has sold 
after it has gone into service? He has sold it for 

(217) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



the specific purpose of giving certain results if cor- 
rectly used and handled. There are many appli- 
ances used in railway operation where it is impera- 
tively necessary for someone with an expert knowl- 
edge to give such appliances a little attention at 
regular intervals, beyond the care that is ordinarily 
given them by employees of the railroad who are 
properly attending to their work. 

Xot only is there an advantage to the railroad 
in the supply manufacturer giving proper attention 
to the appliance which he has sold after it goes into 
service, but there is also a very plain and very big 
advantage to the manufacturer himself. Xot all 
appliances are perfect — not all have been fully de- 
veloped. There is room for progress, and out of 
proper attention to his appliance in service there 
may and will come to the manufacturer much added 
knowledge, which he can turn into added profits by 
making his appliance more perfect. 

We cannot get very far with anything in the rail- 
way world without stumbling upon the value of co- 
operation. This spirit of co-operation which has 
pervaded railroading since the first rails were laid 
has had very much to do with its growth and suc- 
cess. There are two ways of looking at the ques- 
tion of proper attention to appliances in service — 
that is two viewpoints from which we may look at 
the question. The one viewpoint is that of the rail- 

(218) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

way officer or employee, and his duty toward the 
appliance which he is using, and the other viewpoint 
is that of the manufacturer of that same appliance, 
and his duty toward the railroad, in watching it not 
only that it may operate at all times as it should, but 
that in the watching of that operation there may 
come a possibility of further perfecting the original 
design of the appliance." 

That afternoon when we were back at the office, 
I got our railroad friend to dictate as nearly as pos- 
sible what he had said that noon at lunch and give 
it to me, so that I could have it printed exactly as 
he would like to see it. I thought he hit it off pretty 
well, and I wanted to have it in printed form so 
that I could give the supply fraternity at large the 
benefit of it. It seemed to me that he had certainly 
sized up the situation in pretty good shape. It is 
men like this who increase one's respect for the busi- 
ness they are in. In spite of a lot of talk which we 
hear to the contrary, I would like to go on record 
right here as saying that some of the biggest, broad- 
est, and best fellows I ever met are in railroading, 
and they are not confined to any one rank. They 
range all the way from the boss of the cinder pit to 
the occupant of the apparently easy chair behind 
the mahogany desk with a glass top which is used 
by the president. 



(219) 



XXXIII. 

THE CURRENT NEWS OF THE 
INDUSTRY. 

Yesterday was one of those raw, cold, damp, dis- 
agreeable days that make a man feel like hiber- 
nating. Possibly that's what makes him feel like a 
bear, and go home feeling as cross as that animal 
is supposed to feel. We had an awful struggle 
picking out what we wanted to eat, and I laid it up 
to the weather, remarking on how atmospheric 
conditions affected our dispositions. 

"That's all true," said the sales manager, "but if 
you Jiad to earn a living by selling something at a 
higher price than your competitor, you would get 
your disposition trained so that it would be pleasant 
on all occasions." 

There was a little sting in the sales manager's re- 
mark, and I was just in the mood where I could 
hand it back to him, when our senior vice-president 
stepped into the breach with the remark that the 
salesman of today makes a success not only because 
of his ability to present sales arguments pleasantly, 
but because he has a knowledge whereof he speaks. 
Then he went on quite at length on his ideas of 
salesmanship, as near as I can remember it, about 
as follows: 

(220) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"The old type of salesman was a man who, be- 
cause of natural disposition, was enabled to meet 
his fellow men in a way that was pleasing and en- 
tertaining. Any one of us could easily call to mind 
a salesman of a quarter century ago who had a smile 
for everyone and a story for every occasion. 
Knowledge of what he sold was not necessary. It 
was personality and persuasiveness, and not expert 
knowledge of the thing sold, nor of the conditions 
under which the thing sold was to be used. True, 
such salesmen are with us today, and there are cer- 
tain manufacturers who make it a point to hire men 
who know absolutely nothing about the thing they 
are to sell, with the idea that their natural ability 
will take care of them. Undoubtedly a pleasing 
personality influences sales to a certain extent, and 
the manufacturer who employs such a man is right 
to a limited degree. 

"However, the buyer of today is looking for 
something besides persuasiveness and suavity on the 
part of a salesman who presents a product to him. 
He is looking for someone with an expert knowl- 
edge in that particular industry, who can help him 
solve his problems. The man who knows is the man 
who sells. This is right, and as it should be. 

"With this change in salesmen, from a matter of 
personality to one of knowledge, has come also the 
salesman with a pleasing personality and with a 

(221) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



narrow knowledge — a knowledge limited exclu- 
sively to his own particular line — so limited in fact 
that it is impossible for him to see or appreciate the 
attitude of the man on the other side of the desk, 
who wants to buy what he wants to sell. This latter 
salesman is not much better than the old type. The 
modern buyer buys not only from the man with a 
pleasing personality, — not only from the man who 
knows his own narrow line, but from the man who is 
broadly informed as to problems and conditions in 
the broad business field in which the buyer is oper- 
ating.'' 

"This would bring us down to being informed on 
what we might term the current news of the in- 
dustry," I said to the senior vice-president. 

"I should think that is a very good definition of 
it," said our junior vice-president. "Personally, I 
do not believe that anything is of any greater im- 
portance to the railway supply man than a thorough 
knowledge and understanding of current events, 
current problems, current practices, and current 
news of his own industry and the industry of the 
man to whom he sells. To be able to sit down and 
talk intelligently with a railroad official, not only of 
one's own product, but of his product in relation to 
other equipment that is used by a railroad ; to know 
generally how such equipment is handled and used 
— this is what interests the man who specifies or 

(222) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE 55 



buys railroad appliances. More than this, a knowl- 
edge of the problems which confront the railway 
officer is peculiarly advantageous to the railway 
supply man. Between the railroads and the manu- 
facturers of railway equipment there exists natu- 
rally and necessarily a community of interests, and 
the railway officer finding a railway supply man 
well informed on all the topics of the day pertain- 
ing to railroading is very naturally inclined to dis- 
cuss them with him. This leads to a better under- 
standing; leads to friendship; leads to the railway 
officer placing more implicit confidence in what the 
railway supply man may have to say, and also what 
he may have to say about his own manufactured 
product. 55 

"Its a pretty hard matter, isn't it, 55 said the shop 
superintendent, "to keep posted in the way you 
ought to? 55 

I saw that our president was turning some mat- 
ters over in his mind, so I remarked that I thought 
probably he could tell us the shortest cut to infor- 
mation of this kind. 

"Well, I don't know, 55 said the president, "that I 
can give you any short cut. There are many ways 
in which railway supply men can keep posted as to 
the current news of their own and of the railway 
industry. Getting out and mingling among other 
manufacturers and railway officers ; attending club 

(223) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



meetings, conventions, and exhibitions — are all of 
them a big help in this special direction. 

"There is, however, a very sure and certain way 
of keeping in touch with things as they happen, 
which is ofttimes overlooked by the railway supply 
man, and is overlooked by him more often than by 
his good friend, the railway official. Railway of- 
ficers as a general rule are pretty well interested in 
the railway papers to which they subscribe. If they 
do not have time to go over them personally, the 
work is delegated to some subordinate who reads 
and marks for their personal perusal, matters of im- 
portance as they are published from week to week 
in the leading railway journals. This is not so true 
of the railway supply man. We might just as well 
admit it. We do not as a class read the publica- 
tions in our own trade as carefully and as regularly 
as we should. In them is collected and condensed 
all the important news of the day, and everything 
of value and interest to railroads generally is found 
in their pages some time during the year. The sub- 
scription price to a trade publication or to a number 
of them is not a large item in the expense account 
of the railway supply manufacturer; the time con- 
sumed in perusing them from week to week would 
not cut into his unoccupied hours to any very great 
extent, and the value to be derived from the regu- 
lar reading of any railroad paper is very apparent, 

(224) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

and its results would be felt directly in its effect 
upon his own business. Of course success in any 
field of endeavor is possible without reading — that 
is, with very little reading. There are ways of get- 
ting along, and getting information and keeping 
posted without reading anything — not even a daily 
paper. 

"It was not very many years ago that the print- 
ing press was introduced, and it has only been with- 
in the last few hundred years that the average man 
has had the ability to read, let alone the opportunity 
of getting something to read. In the days of 
Homer, information was passed along by word of 
mouth from one town to another, or from one gen- 
eration to another. It was a clumsy and awkward 
way of doing, and civilization proceeded slowly at 
that time. It was only with the introduction of the 
printing press that civilization began to move by 
leaps and bounds. We moved from picture paint- 
ing to the alphabet, from laborious writing to the 
printing press, and from the slow-going ox cart to 
the modern railroad train. No man thinks of con- 
veying his thoughts by drawing pictures to illus- 
trate them. A railway supply man certainly does 
not travel by means of an ox cart. Why ignore the 
printing press and what it gives us?" 

As we walked out of the dining room, I said to 
the senior vice-president : 

(325) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



"I certainly do admire the terse and comprehen- 
sive manner in which the 'big boss' handles any- 
thing that he tackles." 

"Well, he has had a good many years of experi- 
ence," said the shop superintendent, who was walk- 
ing along with us. 

"Yes, that's all true," I replied, "and I would not 
for a minute minimize the value of experience, but 
experience is not always measured by years. Some 
men benefit more by one year's experience than 
others by ten years. Our president is one of those 
men who has gotten ten years' experience out of 
each twelve calendar months. Possibly that is the 
measurement of a big man." 






(226) 



XXXIV. 

A FEAST OR A FAMINE 

" 'A feast or a famine' is something that is handed 
down to us from our pre-historic ancestors. With 
the savage, uncivilized races, it is always a feast or 
a famine. The reason for this is very apparent. 
The savage, — the untutored, — the uneducated, — 
the inexperienced, are naturally improvident. They 
make no plans for the future. They have a very 
little idea of time. It is a hand to mouth existence 
for them, and living from one day to the next. Very 
naturally from them we should expect just this 
mode of life. Feast one week and starve the next. 

"We should expect a gradual elimination of such 
a condition in the progress of the race. We are 
apt to feel in this twentieth century of ours that we 
have progressed a very long way even from the 
civilization of Greece and Rome, to say nothing of 
the barbaric days which preceded the semi-civiliza- 
tion of that period. But we are confronted today 
with the same old problem that has confronted the 
race since it left the trees to go into caves. Our 
commercial life is a very good illustration of the 
fact that the feast or famine is with us today as 
much as it ever has been. This is particularly true 
in our own special field, — that of the railway sup- 

(227) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



ply manufacturing business. Today it is a famine, 
— a year ago, a feast. 

"The savage becomes so accustomed to the condi- 
tions surrounding his life that he is able to gorge 
himself in a way that would kill a civilized man, 
and then endure starvation, and still live. He takes 
it as a matter of course. It is a part of his ex- 
istence, and he makes no very special or strenuous 
efforts to avoid this condition ; — makes no plans for 
the morrow; — lets the morrow take care of itself. 
If there is food in sight, he goes after it strenuously 
enough, but further than that all effort ceases. He 
makes not even feeble attempts toward making 
some arrangement whereby food can be supplied 
with tolerable regularity. 

"Perhaps we are not quite so badly off as this in 
the railway supply business, but we certainly spend 
a good deal more time, and thought and energy, 
in going after what business may be in sight than 
laying any plans for keeping business in sight with 
some little degree of regularity. It is true that the 
Railway Business Association has done some good 
work in this direction, but their limited member- 
ship is mighty good evidence that there are only a 
very small proportion of the thousand or more con- 
cerns who sell railroads who are at all vitally in- 
terested in the problem, and the majority are a 
good deal in the position of the uncivilized man who 

(228) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

takes what comes as a matter of course. Until 
practically every railway supply manufacturer has 
been educated up to the necessity for co-operative 
action through affiliation with some association, 
feast or famine in the railway supply business is 
bound to continue. 

"There are of course some very good natural rea- 
sons for a feast or famine in a business such as we 
are engaged in. This is especially true in certain 
particular lines of the railway supply business. A 
purchase of railway equipment is determined of 
course very largely by the condition of railway 
earnings, and on this is dependent, of course, the 
borrowing power of the railroads, — their ability 
to get money for improvements. When conditions 
are such that one road is in a position where it has 
the money necessary for equipment, the chances 
are that other roads will be in the same position, 
which causes a heavier buying of equipment than 
at other times, meaning a feast for the railway sup- 
ply manufacturer, and the reverse of these condi- 
tions naturally means a famine in the railway sup- 
ply business. 

"It is a big question for the individual railway 
supply man as to what part he is going to take in 
eradicating this very evident evil, and as it is some- 
thing greatly to his advantage to have the railroads 
buy with regularity, it would seem that more rail- 

(229) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



way supply manufacturers would feel impressed 
with the necessity of doing something. It is a well 
established fact that a plant which can be run reg- 
ularly is not only more profitable to the owner who 
has something to sell, but also more profitable to the 
man or company who buys the uniform output. It 
costs more money to turn out the finished material 
in a certain quantity in six months than it does in 
twelve months. Six months of feast and six months 
of famine for the railway supply manufacturer 
means less profit for him and a higher cost to the 
railroad than the same quantity turned out evenly 
during a period of twelve months. 

" What's going to be done about it? From the 
railway supply man's point of view, something 
ought to be done, he is the one that is directly af- 
fected by the 'Feast or the Famine.' " 

"It certainly is a lucky thing for you," said the 
junior vice-president, as he began on his pie, "that 
the sales manager is a thousand miles from here. 
He never would have put up with any such long 
talk from the autocrat." 

"I apologize," I replied, "but my mind has been 
so full of this subject for the last week that I just 
had to get rid of it, and you know this is my golden 
opportunity for so doing." 

"You don't need to apologize at all," said the 
president to me. "I think if some of these things 

(230) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

could be hammered home to our business men, so 
that we would get in the mood — in the habit of 
handling our affairs from a fundamental point of 
view, and not in a superficial way, all of us would 
be a great deal better off, and prosperity generally 
would be speeded up to a very much larger de- 
gree. Every thinking man appreciates the fact that 
human progress and civilization, — the bettering of 
the race, is something which moves ahead very 
slowly and slips back very quickly. The earth's 
surface is nowhere near as thin proportionately to 
the whole size of our planet as is the veneer of civ- 
ilization to the years which we have spent in becom- 
ing civilized." 

"You would appreciate the truth of that state- 
ment more thoroughly," growled the shop super- 
intendent, "if you handled a bunch of men such as 
I have to handle every day. In fact, you would 
not talk about any veneer of civilization, nor even 
a thin coat of varnish.' ' 

The party broke up suddently, because we didn't 
want to hear about what went wrong in the shop. 
That was the way the superintendent earned his 
salary, and we hastily departed, leaving him to his 
own troubles. 



(231) 



XXXV, 

esse 

WAITING. 

"My, but that waiter is slow," said the senior 
vice-president. 

"New man," answered the junior vice-president, 
"give him a little time." 

"You don't mean to say that waiting is disturb- 
ing you any," I remarked. "We have all of us 
been doing so much waiting here recently that we 
ought to be able to wait for a waiter, and do our 
waiting very calmly. It seems to me that the word 
'waiting' very well describes the position in which 
the average railway supply manufacturer finds him- 
self at this time. The thing about it is that he has 
been in this waiting position for several years now, 
and his condition is getting to be chronic, so chronic 
in fact that he is wondering if it is going to settle 
down to a permanent situation. While, of course, 
there is always a moderate amount of business be- 
ing transacted between the railroads and the men 
who furnish them with material, supplies, and 
equipment, still the amount of business that is be- 
ing done right now is not large enough to make 
the average railway supply man feel particularly 
enthusiastic regarding the line of business in which 
he is engaged. 

(232) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

" 'He truly serves who also stands and waits' may 
be a very true saying, but service of this kind gets 
to be very monotonous after a few years. Right 
now, of course, the railway supply man is looking a 
little bit harder for business than he would if there 
were plenty of it in sight, and while he is waiting, 
he is also watching — and watching very carefully 
for every opportunity to help orders materialize. 
Whenever you see a group of railway supply men, 
or meet with them, and overhear what they are 
talking about, the subject of conversation is very 
sure to sooner or later come around to the point 
of discussing the question as to just when railroads 
are going to begin buying again. 

"Of course for many months the proposed five 
per cent rate increase has been constantly upper- 
most in the minds of railway supply men. They 
have been hoping that this will be granted, and that 
it will be granted in the near future. They have 
felt that with this concession to railroads the bars 
will be let down, and their plants will be flooded 
with orders from railroad companies, who have been 
practicing the severest economies for a number of 
years. 

"As long as they have been waiting, they have 
been living in hopes. Now the five per cent in- 
crease seems to be further off than ever, and the 

(233) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



railway supply man is once more getting some 
further practice in the art or science of waiting. 

"True, in this waiting period there is an oppor- 
tunity for the manufacturer of railway supplies to 
take stock with himself and see whether that which 
he is manufacturing and offering for sale is being 
turned out with the greatest possible economy. It 
is a good time to look into the overhead charges; 
a splendid opportunity for analyzing manufactur- 
ing costs, and what is of still more importance, it 
is a good time to look into the sales expense. The 
sales expense of a railway supply manufacturer is 
not small; in fact, it is large, and it seems to be 
necessarily so. 

"Apparently the selling of railway supplies 
should be conducted with economy, inasmuch as 
that which is sold is sold to comparatively few, and 
the gross amounts are large. However, the selling 
of equipment to one railroad does not mean the 
dealing with one man ; it means the dealing with a 
great many men, and to place any appliance upon 
a railroad means that a great many departments 
and a great many individuals on that special rail- 
road have to be satisfied that what is to be bought 
is to render the best service for the least amount 
of money. 

"During this period of waiting the opportunity 
presents itself to the average railway supply manu- 

(234) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

facturer for doing a large amount of educational 
work, making every man on a railroad who is in- 
terested in his special appliance more thoroughly 
familiar with it, and with what it can do. To do 
this means a very large sales expense. To do it 
by advertising means a greatly reduced expendi- 
ture. At the same time, railroad men generally 
keep themselves very well informed, and go very 
thoroughly into the merits of equipment which they 
are using. 

"Probably during this waiting period, the time 
is most opportune for conducting an advertising 
campaign of the right kind. The railroad man 
right now is not in the mood where he is thinking 
of buying. Probably for this reason, this is a bet- 
ter time for educating him from a railway supply 
man's viewpoint than if he were buying, and it is 
through advertising that this educational work can 
be done economically, and if the railway supply 
man handles the matter with intelligence, it can be 
done practically. Then, when the waiting period 
is over, the manufacturer who has been doing ju- 
dicious advertising, is going to be in a far stronger 
position without any unwarranted expenditure of 
time or money." 

"Every time I go out of town," said the sales 
manager when I was through, "I come back and 
find the autocrat in bad habits again. As long 

(235) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



as his discourse was on 'waiting' I thought I would 
wait. Now, I would like to know if all knowl- 
edge reposes with our autocrat." 

"Not all knowledge," said the president, "but 
you must admit that we depend upon him for 
bringing to us each noon many new ideas, or many 
new ways of looking at old ideas." 

"They are all right theoretically," said the sales 
manager, "but I tried some of his theories on Mr. 

of the Z. Ry., and they didn't work at 

all." 

"I think you made a mistake," said the presi- 
dent, "in trying to use any of the autocrat's the- 
ories." 

"Then what's the use of them?" asked the sales 
manager. 

"Just a minute," said the president. "You have 
to take the ideas of another man, weld them in 
with your own ideas, — make them a part of your 
own personality, — your own individuality, if you 
are to use them successfully. The human mind is 
not the wax cylinder of a phonograph, upon which 
to receive what others say and then repeat verbatim 
what has been said. I do not agree with all that 
our autocrat has to say, and, mind you, I do not 
say that he is right or that he is wrong, he is no 
different from any other man. What I think you 
can do that will be of value is to absorb what the 

(236) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE'' 

1 i 

autocrat has to say, or the good in what he has to 
say, — not only the autocrat, but any one else. Grow, 
— develop your own self by so doing; then make 
use of what you have learned. Don't talk as though 
you were a book of quotations, or as though you 
were a talking machine record." 

"The sales manager got it pretty hard from the 
old man, didn't he?" said the shop superintendent 
to the junior vice-president as we walked down the 
street from the club. "What's the matter with the 
selling end of our organization any way?" 

"I guess this waiting is getting on his nerves," 
I broke in. "You really can't blame a man for 
feeling continually upset who is responsible for the 
sales of any railway supply concern. These are 
the days that try men's souls. Our sales manager 
is all right in the main, but you know he is get- 
ting some pretty hard sledding, and I think he is 
standing up pretty well under it. You remember 
that book of Charles Reade's 'Put Yourself in His 
Place' ; a pretty good story and well worth remem- 
bering. If you can only do that, it gives you quite 
a different way of looking at things." 

"You certainly are a peculiar proposition, Auto- 
crat," said the shop superintendent. "There's no- 
body at our lunch table who roasts the sales man- 
ager as you do, and yet behind his back you de- 
fend him." 

(237) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



"I don't intentionally 'roast' the sales manager," 
I said. "I disagree with him partly because I do 
actually disagree, and partly because I value the 
sales manager's opinion and point of view very 
highly and want to draw him out. He is the man 
who is actually and continuously in touch with the 
railroad men, and I think his ideas and attitude 
are of exceeding great value." 



(238) 



XXXVI. 

PRESENT CONDITIONS. 

The president went away on his vacation last 
week, and we were all of us glad to see him go. 
He needed it; any man does who is at the head of 
a railway supply business these days. Everybody 
else in the establishment can go and put off his trou- 
bles on somebody and then go home and sleep 
nights, but the president has to take his troubles 
home with him. There isn't any dodging of the 
fact that the man at the head of a business has 
a responsibility which he cannot share. 

Well, when we sat down to lunch, the sales man- 
ager made a profound bow to the senior vice-presi- 
dent, referring to him as chairman of the conven- 
tion, and suggesting that he would be willing to 
lend him a pencil if he would sign the ticket for 
every one. There was a lot of good natured josh- 
ing, and before we got through, the senior vice- 
president did sign the ticket. 

"Now that the ticket is signed and that's off our 
minds," continued the sales manager, "I want to 
propound the following to the august body here 
assembled: What is the outlook for business? 
When will the railroads begin buying? Do you 
think they will begin buying in any quantity be- 

(239) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



fore fall? Are the railroads going to buy gener- 
ally, or will there be just a few roads in the mar- 
ket? Will the crops have any effect on railway 
purchases? Do you think railroads are going to 
buy for future needs, or simply from hand to 
mouth?" 

"All these and many more questions are being 
continually asked by the railway supply trade," I 
replied. "What is the real condition of things to- 
day? Ask any man who is acquainted with rail- 
road conditions, and in describing the situation as 
it is at present, he will use the word 'spotted.' This 
applies not only to the railroad field, but seemingly 
to many other fields. In a medium sized city, you 
will find on one side of the street a manufacturer 
who says that business is good, and across the street 
another man will tell you that business is not good ; 
'there is no business.' Not that the one man is an 
optimist and the other a pessimist, but they are 
really telling you exactly the condition of things 
as they see them. Probably no one in the railway 
supply business would claim that his business is un- 
usually good; yet you will find a number who say 
that their business is running along as well as can 
be expected. Just what does that mean? Does 
it mean that that particular railway supply con- 
cern does not expect any business, and is, therefore, 
not disappointed in its expectations? 

(240) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"There is uncertainty everywhere, — yet constant 
encouragement. One road is not doing any buying, 
except that which is absolutely necessary, and after 
it has ordered some small amount of material or 
equipment, will have the manufacturer cancel the 
order. Another road will buy carefully, for their 
immediate needs, and still another seems to main- 
tain the policy of buying conservatively for their 
immediate and also for their future needs. One 
railroad has announced, not publicly, that its pol- 
icy will be to buy carefully and regularly just those 
things that are needed to maintain the road in 
proper condition and meet the demands for good 
service on the part of the public and the shippers. 

"Analyzing the conditions of the railway trade 
seemingly does not get one very far in a satisfac- 
tory solution of the problem as to when and how 
much railroads are going to buy. Very naturally 
the sellers of railway equipment are simply reflect- 
ing the mental attitude of the buyers, and a most 
satisfactory description of the conditions as they are 
at the present time seems to be found in the word 
'spotted. 5 Possibly this is better than a uniform 
depression in railway purchases. It may indicate 
the resumption of business, and good business, too, 
in the near future. Still, on the other hand, it may 
mean that this 'spotted' condition simply reflects 
a very general curtailment of purchases on the part 

(241) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



of the railroads doing only such buying as seems 
to be absolutely necessary for the actual upkeep of 
the operation of the railway lines. 

"The railway supply business for a good many 
years has had the 'feast or famine' appearance, a 
phase of the business which has been touched upon 
by us at these luncheons. Naturally, men whose 
livelihood is dependent upon the selling of railway 
supplies are inquiring anxiously as to what the 
future may be, in order to prepare themselves for 
the conditions which must be met. A man may 
forecast the future; figure it out from the past; 
analyze the present conditions, and get therefrom 
the probabilities of what is to come; but no man 
can speak authoritatively today of that which shall 
occur tomorrow. It is one of the limitations of 
the finite mind, and all guessings as to the future 
remain guessings. The future will determine 
whether they are good guesses or not. 

"Meanwhile,with 'spotted' conditions in the rail- 
way supply business, and uncertainty as to just 
what the immediate or far future will bring forth, 
while no discouragement is intended to those who 
are attempting to anticipate that which is to come 
in the way of business or lack of business, — still 
there are certain things that can be accomplished 
in the railway supply business today, without wait- 
ing for tomorrow. No good salesman who knows 

(242) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

human nature fails to recognize for a moment this 
fact: that when a buyer is not buying, his mind is 
much more open to suggestion or argument as to 
what he should buy than when he is doing the actual 
buying. He is in a more recipient mood; listens 
more carefully to statements in regard to the mer- 
its of any appliance. 

"A man who has a farm does his planting not 
at the time of year when everyone else is reaping. 
He does not expect to plant today and see the re- 
sults of his planting within the following twenty- 
four hours. He realizes that there are certain 
times for putting the seed into the ground, and 
other times for gathering the result of what he has 
done, and he knows that he is to wait patiently, 
and that while he is waiting, he must be at work. It 
is one of those universal laws with which everyone 
is familiar, and no one expects to plant wheat one 
week, and see it turned into flour the next. A 
number of months are to intervene, and there is 
some work to be done during that time. 

"The railway supply business is not subject to 
special laws. There is a time for planting, and a 
time for harvesting, and you cannot plant when 
you harvest. The individual railway supply manu- 
facturing company which has something of merit 
must interest the railroads in its special equipment, 
— must demonstrate to them that it has something 

(243) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



that is worth while, — something that is of advan- 
age in railway service. 

"The first thing is the right kind of publicity 
which will gain the favorable attention of the pos- 
sible purchaser, and there is no better time for the 
gaining of such attention than just the present 
time. Railroads are not busily engaged in buying, 
but they are busily engaged in giving serious and 
constant consideration to lessening the expenses of 
operation. They are looking more earnestly today 
than ever before for material and equipment which 
will give the very best kind of service. 

"They are more apt today to listen to the argu- 
ments of a man who, with a higher first cost, has 
something to sell which will insure a lessened main- 
tenance expense, giving in the long run the best 
service for the least money. The railway supply 
manufacturers w T ho appreciate the fact that condi- 
tions are 'spotted, 5 and who at the same time realize 
the opportunities for the right kind of publicity, — 
that is, the correct methods of bringing their equip- 
ment and material before railway buyers, are go- 
ing to reap, after a few months, according to the 
perfectly natural law, the results. One of the old- 
est and leading railway supply manufacturing con- 
cerns are taking advantage of the present condi- 
tions in railway purchasing to advertise more care- 

(244) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

fully and more thoroughly that which they have 
to sell than they have ever done in the past. 

"When the snow is off the ground, and the first 
signs of spring are in the air, the farmer begins 
his plowing. The ground is wet; the days are 
cloudy, — sometimes dreary and chilly, and while 
the sunshine alternates with the rain, there is noth- 
ing to suggest anything in the way of harvest. Yet 
the farmer knows that the harvest days are com- 
ing. He does not wait for them to arrive, but does 
his sowing, so that he may take advantage of the 
days which are sure to come. The railway supply 
manufacturer has something to learn from the 
farmer." 

"I protest," said the sales manager. "Are these 
luncheons held specifically and entirely for the pur- 
pose of allowing the autocrat to do all the talk- 
ing?" 

"Now, don't get excited," said the treasurer. 
"We all know that you wanted to talk today, but 
you save your energy for that ten thousand dollar 
talk that you have got to put up this afternoon if 
we are going to get that order from the X. Y. Z. 
Railway, and we want it, and we need it, and we 
must have it. Moreover, it would add a whole lot 
to the pleasure of the president's vacation." 

"Do you mean to say," I asked the treasurer, 

(345) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



"that the 'old man' wants a report of the business 
while he is away?" 

"He certainly does/' said the treasurer. 

"Well, he knew better than to ask me for it," 
I replied. "I think of all fool things, keeping 
track of one's business when one is on a vacation 
is the most foolish." 

"You don't dare tell the 'big boss' that when 
he gets home," said the sales manager. 

"I am going to tell it to him in a telegram this 
afternoon," I snapped back. 

"I will just gamble you the price of tomorrow's 
lunch that you don't do anything of the sort," said 
the sales manager. 

"And I will take you for lunch the day after 
tombrrow," said the senior vice-president, "if you 
persuade our worthj^ chief executive to forget busi- 
ness while he is on his vacation." 

They both lost, which only goes to prove that our 
president is a bigger man than they thought. 



(240) 



XXXVII. 
A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE. 

There is something about the act of eating that 
makes most men talk more freely at such times, 
and a business man will enter into a conversation 
with another business man across the lunch table 
with more freedom, — with less reservation, than 
across the desk in the business office. Possibly this 
is due to the fact that on one side of the office desk 
sits the man who has something to buy, and on the 
other side sits the man who has something to sell. 
This may explain the reason why many good sales- 
men attempt to substitute for the business desk, 
the luncheon or dinner table. Possibly there is 
more of a feeling of equality as well as good-fellow- 
ship when a cloth, silver, and dishes cover the bare 
woodwork. 

This, however, is all by the way, but it suggests 
itself because of an instance reported by our sales 
manager the day he paid for our lunch. 

He was telling of an actual conversation between 
a couple of supply men, — one on one side of the 
lunch table, and one on the other. It occurred 
only this week, and, as usual during the present 
lack of orders for the manufacturer of railway sup- 
plies, this subject was uppermost. As to when 

(247) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



there would be business, and how much there would 
be when it did come, — this is of interest, but not 
just exactly what we want to bring out at this time. 

One of the supply men had just taken on a new 
line, — taken it on to sell of course, but as a matter 
of principle with him, he wanted to know that that 
which he was going to sell would do that for which 
it as intended, and he told how he had been spending 
the forenoon in having an independent and un- 
biased test made of this particular equipment, in 
order that he might really know that the claims 
made by the manufacturers as to what could be ex- 
pected by the user of the equipment were true. 

" A matter of principle," — is there a growing ten- 
dency on the part of railway supply manufacturers 
nofrto take another man's "say so," but to find out 
for themselves that what they sell is exactly that 
which they represent it to be? If this is the case, 
has it come about because of an awakening of the 
business conscience of the nation, and a gradual 
rising to a higher plane of business dealing, and is 
there accordingly being established a moral code in 
business? Possibly this may be the answer, — or 
have wise, shrewd, far-seeing business men who 
manufacture railway supplies come to feel that the 
success of their business, not for today but for to- 
morrow, rests upon "delivering the goods?" 

This is an interesting question, — interesting 

(248) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

whatever the reason or reasons may be: — we will 
not attempt to discuss it further. The suggestion 
is for the reader. We are simply giving the inci- 
dent. However, in these troublesome days of rail- 
way legislation, and lots of it, doesn't it speak well 
for the railway officer who buys that the railway 
supply manufacturer who sells is conducting his 
business in a high, broad and fair-minded way? In 
the very nature of things, a manufacturer of rail- 
way supplies, who is the seller, is reflecting very 
largely the attitude of the railway official, who is 
the buyer. 

"This question of whether what you are selling 
has merit or not," said our senior vice-president, 
"is suggestive of something else. A salesman who 
takes the attitude that he will not sell a railway ap- 
pliance unless it has merit is pretty strong evidence 
of the fact that such a man is a good salesman. I 
didn't say 'clever'," he continued, shutting off the 
sales manager, "and I believe that one of the great- 
est achievements in the management of any great 
industry is the getting together of a high-grade 
staff of salesmen. It is a work requiring experi- 
ence, good judgment and time. The value of such 
a staff is not to be measured by salaries. Men who 
draw good salaries in such positions are generally 
worth the money — sometimes vastly more than the 
salaries paid. In a business which is subject to 'ups 

(249) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



and downs,' and which is a feast or a famine, the 
manufacturer saves and makes from a high-grade 
staff, far more in good times than he loses by pay- 
ing the same salaries through dull times. 

"It is, therefore, a duty to keep such men, even 
when they are unable to produce immediate results. 
It is, moreover, to his self-interest. In a business 
which swings like a pendulum from one extreme to 
another, preparedness is the very essence of good 
management. You can't pick up the best men for 
the job on a moment's notice, even by bidding up 
on salaries. The efficient man will need extrava- 
gant inducements to lead him to desert a concern 
w r hich stood by him when he wasn't earning all that 
he was getting. 

"I "remember in the panic times of 1898, every- 
body had cold feet and was cutting off everything 
that could be cut off that some of our competitors 
and those in allied industries were dropping their 
highest-priced and hence best men. I had the nerve 
to pick and take on a considerable number of such 
men and thus obtained a splendid force. Business 
turned and we got the benefit. Before others could 
get any kind of men into the field, we had a high 
grade staff 'right on the job,' and we received in 
immediate results much more than all it had cost vis 
to carry them. And we have kept such a staff as 
we never had before, and could hardly have ob- 

(250) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

tained at any time except for the nervous fear and 
lack of faith of our competitors." 

"I guess this is where I hold my job all right," 
said the sales manager, "at least as long as the 
senior vice-president is in the chair, — so here's good 
health and prosperity to the president, and may he 
take a long vacation trip." 

"You better not depend too much upon what the 
senior vice-president said," I replied. "Remember 
he is talking about high-grade salesmen." And 
then I got out of the dining room before the sales 
manager had a chance to get back at me. 



(251) 



XXXVIII. 
ARE THE CLOUDS BREAKING? 

"What's this," said the shop superintendent, 
"our lunch all ordered for us? I want to do my 
own ordering." 

"Of course you do," said the junior vice-presi- 
dent. "A man who is superintendent of a shop 
with a lot of men under him gets in the habit of 
ordering everything and everybody." 

"You just step into line now in the procession, 
and keep still, and don't make any remarks, and 
take what's coming to you. That's what a man 
gets in the final analysis of things anyway. Don't 
but or — butt. It won't do you any good," I said 
to him. "Our worthy senior vice-president evi- 
dently has a little surprise in store for us, as I saw 
him talking to the head waiter when we came in." 

By this time our waiter had arrived with a 
luncheon which proved to be fish caught by the 
president and expressed on to the Club so that we 
might have a special treat. 

"But I get fish tonight at home," said the shop 
superintendent. 

"If you don't stop fussing around here," said the 
sales manager, "there's going to be a new face in 
the shop of the Railway Supply Company, 

(252) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

and it won't be the face of a man who objects to 
eating fish either." 

"You have no business," I said to the shop 
superintendent, "to have fish at home on Thursdays 
anyway. Friday is the day." 

"Haven't you been married long enough," he 
said, turning on me savagely, "to know that a man 
hasn't anything to say about what he gets to eat?" 

"Come now," said the senior vice-president, 
"here's a special treat that the president sent us to 
cheer us up while he is away, and if we are not 
careful it will start a free fight." 

"Why don't the autocrat talk about something? 
He is always so chuck full of fool ideas," said the 
sales manager. "That might relieve the tension." 

"All right," I replied. "Here goes : We know 
that it is darkest just before dawn, but, at the same 
time, when it gets so terrifically dark, it is hard to 
convince ourselves that it will ever get light again." 

"That seems to hit our situation," laughed the 
junior vice-president. 

"Silence," said the treasurer, rapping on the 
table with his knife. "There will be trouble again." 

So I went on. 

"This is about the feeling just at present in the 
railway supply trade. Every man questions every 
other man whom he meets. He wants to know if 
there are any signs of promise. He examines every 

(253) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



straw with a microscope to see if there is any wind 
blowing it, and to see if he can discover the direction 
of the wind. 

"Last week there was a little rift in the clouds, 
and a ray of sunshine shot through in the shape of 
any authentic report that one of the big railroads 
had released over two hundred orders which had 
been held up for some months past. These orders 
covered supplies and equipment of various kinds. 
The same road was also figuring on freight cars. Of 
course there are a few roads figuring, and that part 
of the authentic report is not so interesting as the 
fact that the large number of orders was positively 
released. With this comes the rumor that orders 
are going to be placed now by many of the roads, 
and the equipment which is specified will be bought 
to be paid for after the end of the fiscal year, June 
30th. 

"Not that we would intimate by any manner of 
means that railway supply manufacturers are going 
to be swamped by a number of orders that are to be 
placed in the near future. Far be it from us to sug- 
gest a feast like that following a famine of many 
months. We have not been optimistic at these 
luncheons, and we have not been optimistic with 
ourselves, simply for the very good reason that we 
could see nothing to be optimistic about. How- 
ever, we have reserved the right to become opti- 

(254) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

mistic at the slightest indication that business was 
to pick up. 

"There is evidently every good reason to believe, 
from the way a number of straws are blowing, that 
there is to be a reasonable resumption in the pur- 
chasing on the part of railroads. We do not feel it 
within our province to go into all the many reasons 
of causes that are leading up to what we believe is a 
resumption of railway purchases. We are simply 
stating how we feel. We want to make more spe- 
cial reference to the attitude which we should take 
as railway supply men toward the slowing up of 
business, and the apparent prospect that it is to 
swing back again to more normal condition. Many 
manufacturers are running their plants at half their 
output and less. They are figuring on every possi- 
ble way of economizing, and that we should do so is 
only good business. Whether we are right in think- 
ing that the pendulum has come to a stop on one 
side and is returning, or whether it has not yet 
reached its limit, is something that can only be 
guessed at, and while we speculate as to conditions 
and as to the future, there is no reason why we 
should allow all of our time and energy, or even a 
part of it, to be consumed in watching for the first 
small break in the dark clouds which overhang the 
business of the railway supply manufacturer. 

"Business sometimes comes back, with the re- 

(255) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



turn of the pendulum, with terrific force and in 
large quantities. The question of capacity and de- 
livery may within the next year amount to a great 
deal in the securing of orders from railroads. The 
railroads need new equipment; they are frank in 
acknowledging this, and they are equally frank in 
admitting that they cannot afford to spend the 
money just at present. When they get the money, 
or when they know where they can get the money, 
it is not going to be buying in driblets, but buying 
in large quantities. This necessarily must be so, 
because their needs even now are large. The grant- 
ing of the five per cent rate increase, or the settling 
of the spotting charges, mean the possibility for the 
railrpads of paying more adequate returns to their 
stockholders, and an opportunity for them to bor- 
row money safely, and as money can then be ob- 
tained in large quantities, the buying is apt to be 
equally great. 

"Is it not therefore wisdom on the part of the 
railway supply manufacturer to 'set his house in 
order' — in other words, clean up his manufacturing 
plant — go over it very carefully, look into every 
corner, and see that it is being operated to a maxi- 
mum of efficiency, so that when orders do come, he 
may be prepared to get from his plant the maxi- 
mum output, and take every advantage of better 
business conditions?" 

(256) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

"Well, that was pretty good fish, after all," said 
the shop superintendent, as he got up from the 
table. 

"Don't make any remarks ; just get back to work, 
or the autocrat will begin talking again," said the 
sales manager. 



(257) 



XXXIX. 

LETTING OUT GOOD MEN IN DULL 

TIMES. 

"You remember our talking about retaining a 
good salesman during dull times?" asked the 
junior vice-president, as we began our lunch the 
other day. 

"Yes, — and we decided it was a good thing to do, 
didn't we?" said the sales manager. 

"With special emphasis on the kind of a sales- 
man," I interrupted. 

"Well, I want to talk today," said the junior 
vice-president, "because I have something to say." 

"You've got every chance if the autocrat will 
keep still," said the sales manager. 

I said nothing, so our junior vice-president went 
on with his story. 

"Three or four years ago a railway supply con- 
cern, well known, prosperous, making good things 
for the railroads, brought out something new. Like 
many another new thing for the railroads it needed 
development in service in spite of the fact that the 
basic principle was a correct one. To make a suc- 
cess out of this special appliance meant that some- 
one who knew railroading, and the special branch 
of railroading involved, must live with this particu- 

(258) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

lar equipment, literally night and day, in order that 
the little unimportant failures might be remedied, 
and that the thing which was right in the main 
might become altogether right. 

"As many another railway supply company has 
done, this particular manufacturer looked about 
among his acquaintances who were railroading and 
picked out a young man who had made a good 
record with a railroad company, and who knew 
thoroughly that department of railroading which 
was to make use of the manufacturer's appliance. 
The railroad man stepped from railroading into the 
railway supply business. He took hold of a good 
railroad specialty, ironed out the wrinkles in it, 
smoothed out the kinks, fitted it into the railroad 
service, and there is no question but that appliance 
is a splendid thing for the railroads, and a splen- 
did thing because this railroad man, with the idea 
of bettering himself, went into another field. 

"You will remember that as we talked it over at 
lunch the other day, we decided that 'Jim' had been 
a very valuable acquisition to this railway supply 
manufacturer, but due to present conditions he was 
advised to look for something else. Of course, that 
is only business. An employer has the right to dis- 
continue any arrangement he may have with an em- 
ployee when the contract has expired, or if there is 
no contract, after giving due notice ; and in this par- 

(259) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



ticular instance, perhaps the employer had gotten 
out of this employee the greater part of his value. 
He got the right kind of a man to live with his ap- 
pliance until he had it adapted to the conditions 
under which it must operate on the railroads, and 
now in the future it is more a matter of salesman- 
ship, pure and simple, than it is a matter of sales- 
manship plus special knowledge of the thing to be 
sold. 

"I am not criticising for a moment the employer 
who dispenses with the services of an employee, nor 
would I criticise the business judgment in this spe- 
cial instance. It is a question as to whether it is 
not better in times like these to make a reduction in 
salaries all round, rather than to give up entirely 
some one or two men who are really essential to the 
business. That is, when conditions are normal (and 
normal they are going to be in the not very distant 
future ) , we need to have our organization in good 
working condition in order that we may take ad- 
vantage of returning business, for organizations — 
manufacturing and selling organizations — cannot 
be built in a day or a month, sometimes not in a 
year. If because a railway supply concern cannot 
afford to keep up its sales expense during dull 
times, isn't it better to reduce salaries to the neces- 
sary amount, maintaining the sales organization in- 
tact? Then when times are good, raise salaries in 

(260) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

keeping with the amount of business; or possibly 
better yet would be a minimum salary scale main- 
tained through good years and bad, and a bonus for 
the salesmen when conditions are such that they can 
largely increase the sales." 

"Of course/' I said, "it looks to us as though this 
particular concern had made a mistake with this 
particular salesman. The wise salesman right now 
is an exceedingly busy man. There is plenty to do, 
not in the actual getting of orders, but in the get- 
ting into condition where orders may be obtained 
when there are orders to get. No railway supply 
salesman has a perfect acquaintance, or a perfect 
understanding, with all of the railroad men with 
whom he is doing business, and there is no better 
time than right now to perfect himself in this direc- 
tion, and the reduction of his salary is not likely to 
increase his enthusiasm nor his capacity for larger 
or more efficient work. Every man feels that if he 
is doing good w r ork, efficient work, and is capable 
and energetic, he is entitled to be paid for such 
work, even though conditions are such that he can- 
not earn as much for his employer as he could if 
general conditions were better. Now there are two 
classes of employers. One class of employers re- 
fuses at all times and under all conditions to reduce 
salaries. The other class of employers decides that 
it is good business policy at times to reduce salaries. 

(261) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



From a business standpoint, which class of em- 
ployers is right in their business judgment? An 
employer wants to get the best salesmen, appreci- 
ating the fact that a good salesman at any price is 
better than a poor salesman, no matter how little 
he is paid, for a poor salesman very often will do 
more harm than good — will lose business rather 
than create it. 

"Look at it from the salesman's viewpoint. He 
is working today for a concern that decides, because 
business is poor, that the wise thing to do is to cut 
his salary. A good friend of his is working for an- 
other concern as a salesman. That particular com- 
pany adopts the policy of maintaining salaries. 
Business gets better, as it is bound to do, and both 
types of employers find it advisable to branch out, 
and the fellow that had his salary cut listens very 
carefully to a proposition from the employer who 
he knows does not and has not cut salaries, and de- 
cides to leave his old concern and go with the new 
one. It would seem in the long run as though the 
man who refuses to cut salaries in times of depres- 
sion would be the gainer. He is a man who is 
going to have the pick of the best sales ability in the 
railway supply business. 

"Perhaps the man who cuts salaries now has an 
idea that the proper thing to do is to sit down, and 
after he has sat down, to sit tight and refuse to do 

(262) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

any sales work simply because there is no immediate 
business in sight. If the average business man had 
the faith of the farmer who plows the ground and 
sows the seed when there is nothing, absolutely 
nothing to indicate the harvest, he would be having 
his salesmen at work now and prepare for the busi- 
ness harvest that is bound to come. 

"For a good many years there have been indi- 
viduals, or groups, or societies of people, mainly of 
some religious order, who have figured out the end 
of the world. We don't pay much attention to them 
nowadays. They have prophesied the end of every- 
thing so often that they have laid themselves open 
to ridicule. To hear some business men talk we 
might naturally conclude that while the end of the 
world is not scheduled for next week, it was com- 
ing within a month or two. There is no use of 
arguing such a question. We are entitled to our 
own opinion, but for our part we don't believe in 
the end of the world, that is not for a few million 
years anyway. We believe in advertising NOW. 
We believe in getting the manufacturing and oper- 
ating departments in our business well organized 
NOW. We believe in paying our salesmen just 
what we have been paying them and keeping them 
energetically at work NOW. We believe in oper- 
ating our business strenuously in every way NOW. 
And we believe that if we do some of these things 

(263) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



NOW we will get the benefit of so doing later on." 

"Now you have said something worth while," 
said the sales manager. "I will take it all back that 
you talk too much, Autocrat. You do sometimes, 
but I would be willing to listen to you for an hour 
right along those lines." 

"I know you would," I replied, "because I am 
talking about something that you think is to your 
interest. Be broad-minded enough to see the other 
fellow's interest and the other fellow's viewpoint, 
and always remember there are two sides to every 
fence." 

"You mean two sides to every question," said the 
sales manager. 

"I said exactly what I meant," I replied. "There 
are two sides to every fence." 



(264) 



XL, 
THE PLANT BEHIND THE PRODUCT. 

"In these days of economizing on the part of rail- 
way officers in the purchasing of railway supplies, 
there is always a danger that apparent economy 
may be mistaken for real economy. 

"Two men build a house under practically the 
same specifications as to size, material and design. 
One man accepts the highest bidder and pays $6,000 
for his house. The other man takes the lowest 
bidder and pays $5,530, and when the houses are 
finished one house is just as good as the other; but 
is it ? Three years after the houses are finished, the 
man who took the highest bid finds that his repairs 
have amounted to $115. The man who took the 
lowest bid has replastered three rooms where the 
ceilings have fallen, had to tear out part of his 
plumbing, has had to reset his fireplace, and has 
had water in the cellar, and his repair bill is over 
$700. This is not a suppositious unusual case. It 
is experienced by every man who builds." 

"What are you getting at now?" asked the sales 
manager. "We are not in the building business." 

"It is possible, however," I said, "to learn some- 
thing from the building business, or from the act 
of building a house. The principle is the same in 

(265) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



building a house as it is in building a railroad and 
the purchasing of material that goes into its con- 
struction, maintenance and operation. In buying 
from the lowest bidder the purchase is apparently 
economical but the service rendered must be taken 
into account before a final decision can be reached 
as to true economy of the particular article. 

"Railway supply manufacturers must necessarily 
make a profit upon that which they sell to railroad 
companies. Otherwise they cannot continue in 
business. In the purchasing of equipment for the 
railroads, as a general rule something has to be 
taken into consideration, aside from the weight of 
the material purchased. There are, of course, 
many staple articles that can be bought on the price 
per pound basis, but not everything that goes into 
railway equipment can be bought by that method if 
true economy is to be practiced. A railway officer, 
in buying equipment, should look not only at the 
appliance or material which he is buying, but go 
beyond that and consider the manufacturing con- 
cern from whom he is buying. 

"In any business there are certain concerns, not 
necessarily large ones, who are originators and 
pioneers in the manufacturing of certain classes of 
product. They make what they have to sell to give 
service and exercise the greatest care in the manu- 
facture of their product, and spend time and 

(266) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

thought and energy and money in developing their 
product to the very highest degree of perfection; 
and because of their thorough honesty of purpose, 
they are successful in their particular undertaking. 
The success of such a concern is always responsible 
for competition from another class of manufac- 
turers who are simply in business for what they can 
sell at the time, making the basis of their selling 
arguments the price, copying as closely as the 
patent laws will allow that which has been origi- 
nated by a pioneer concern, doing the work just 
barely well enough to pass first inspection by the 
purchaser and having no thought of giving service. 
" 'The plant behind the product' is a familiar ex- 
pression, but should not for that reason be over- 
looked by the purchaser of railway supplies in the 
buying of his material. The plant that has been 
for years turning out a certain product, of which 
it was the originator, which did the pioneer work in 
a certain field, should, other things being equal, 
turn out the best product. The railway supply 
manufacturer is an outgrowth of the needs of rail- 
way operation which is becoming each day more 
complex. The signal engineer, for instance, is a 
man with multitudinous duties to be performed in 
connection with the moving of trains. He has a 
constantly increasing number of problems which 
have to be solved. If he performs his regular duties 

(267) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



in connection with railroad service, he has not the 
time for the solving of these problems. He, there- 
fore, goes to the expert for help. The expert is the 
manufacturer of signal apparatus, who, unannoyed 
with the duties incident to the office of the signal 
engineer, can give his entire attention to the solving 
of these same problems, and the problems are many. 
They are not solved by any one manufacturer or 
any group of manufacturers. There are many dif- 
ferent groups at work simply upon the problems 
which present themselves to the signal engineer, 
which is only one of the many departments of rail- 
road service. 

"One of these groups, we will say, is at work en- 
deavoring to solve in the most satisfactory manner, 
the many problems which are incident simply to the 
signal lamp. Now there are manufacturers of sig- 
nal lamps who are earnestly endeavoring, and have 
been for many years, to develop a lamp which shall 
give the best service and at the lowest possible cost 
to the railroads. They have been at it for many 
years, have many men in their employ who have 
given a lifetime to originating and developing the 
signal lamp. It is from such a manufacturer as 
this that the railroad officer can buy and in so doing 
practice real economy. 

"With the growth and success of the manufac- 

(268) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

turer who has been the pioneer and originator, 
comes the growth and success in a small measure of 
the imitator. While imitation is the sincerest flat- 
tery, it is the kind of flattery that is not sought 
after. Such imitative manufacturers manage to ex- 
ist due to the fact that there are always a few rail- 
way officials who will buy material on its looks and 
its weight. If scientific economy is to be practiced 
in the purchase of railway equipment, the railway 
officer must go back behind the product to the plant 
from which it comes ; its history, its reliability, and 
its reputation for fair dealing. It is recognized that 
it is not safe to buy on price alone. In a quite im- 
portant sense, also, it is not the highest wisdom to 
buy on price and merit of the appliance without 
considering the character of the manufacturer and 
the element of permanency in his business. All 
three considerations should be given due weight 
and none of them can be fairly ignored." 

"Our autocrat is getting better," said the presi- 
dent. "That is as good a talk as I have ever heard 
him put up." 

"It's a good talk all right," said the sales man- 
ager, "but I will bet that he couldn't get that off to 
a railroad man. It's one thing to sit here at this 
lunch table and give one's ideas to a sympathetic 
audience, but it's another thing to go out and have 

(269) 



L 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



to beat up a railroad man to get him to listen to 

55 

you. 

There is some truth in what the sales manager 
had to say, but I didn't admit it to him. 



(270) 



XLL 

CONSIDERATE TREATMENT OF THE 

OTHER FELLOW. 

We were all together in the dining car the other 
day coming home and the man across the aisle, 
while waiting for the waiter to bring his change, put 
on his hat. Xow he wasn't a farmer; a farmer 
wouldn't have done such a thing. Don't think be- 
cause a man is brought up in the country he doesn't 
know anything. Most of the men who know how 
to do things in this land of ours were brought up in 
the country. This fellow was evidently a business 
man, evidently living in the city; you can tell a city 
man by some of his mannerisms. The dining car 
was crowded with men, women and children and 
the waiter had his hands full and it must have been 
five minutes before he got back with the change. 
What the man with the hat on said to the waiter is 
hardly worth repeating, but what our president said 
about the man with the hat on I think should be 
made a matter of record. 

We had ordered our luncheon and naturally 
were waiting, as one always does in a dining car, 
and our president said absolutely nothing, but he 
looked at the man, and looked at him hard, then 
looked out of the window and then looked at the 

(271) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



man again. Finally when the fellow had left the 
president looked across the table at me and said, 
"Now, Mr. Autocrat, what do you think of a man 
who won't observe the ordinarily polite things in 
life?" 

"Well," I replied, "he might have been preoccu- 
pied; perhaps he is the kind of a man who handles 
his employees as though they were slaves, and in 
that way gets into the mental frame of mind where 
he has very little regard for the rights or feelings 
of others." 

"Perhaps he has an unselfish wife," broke in the 
senior vice-president. "There is nothing like that 
for making a hog out of a man." 

"Well, I don't know that I ought to be quite so 
stirred up over a little thing like a man putting his 
hat on in a dining car, but it just happened to hit 
me the wrong way," said the president. "There is 
a tremendous lack of consideration of other people 
in the business world and some way I have had it 
rubbed in to me more than the usual number of 
times within the last week or ten days." 

"Did anything go wrong at the conventions?" 
asked the junior vice-president. 

"Oh, no," said the president, "everything was all 
right down there, possibly I might say it was the 
very reverse, speaking from the treatment we re- 
ceived from the hotel men. They are ever consider- 

(272) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

ate, always looking out for us, but we are always 
willing to treat people with consideration when by 
so doing we are making money out of them. But 
why shouldn't a man be a gentleman in business 
just as much as he would be at a reception, or at his 
own club, or in church. I won't say that they are 
always considerate in those places, but they are 
more apt to be. I have an idea that the man who 
just left the dining car showed his character by the 
very act of sitting there for five minutes with his 
hat on. If he had put his hat on and then taken it 
off, I simply would have thought that he was ab- 
sent-minded, but I think it's a case where one little 
incident gives the key to a man's whole attitude in 
life, You know there are some people that never 
have any consideration for the man from whom 
they are buying, and every consideration for the 
man to w T hom they are selling. I think the man 
who makes any difference in his treatment of others, 
whether he is buying or selling, makes the greatest 
mistake in the world. In the first place he may not 
always be buying, he may be compelled some day to 
sell, and an unpopular buyer never makes a popu- 
lar salesman." 

"Don't you think," I asked, that the man who is 
always buying is not always considerate of others, 
due to the fact that when he is considerate he is so 

(273) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



often taken advantage of by people who want to 
sell him something?" 

"Yes, that is true," said the president, "but a man 
can be a gentleman and still turn people down. You 
know some buyers have a faculty for giving another 
fellow the order and treating you so nicely that 
you feel more kindly toward him than you do 
toward some other man who gives you an order." 

"That's one of those fellows," broke in the sales 
manager, "that does it in such a condescending way 
as if he was giving you something and getting noth- 
ing in return. The fact of the matter is, not only 
the salesman who sells should be grateful for the 
order which he has taken, but the buyer who buys 
from him should feel under obligations to that 
salesman for selling him something which is going 
to be of greater value to him than anything else 
that he could buy." 

"That's all good theory," I remarked, "and I am 
not going to say a word against it, especially in view 
of the fact that I have been the recipient of remarks 
at various times, suggesting the fact that I am given 
mostly to theorizing." 



(274) 



XLIL 

PROVING ONES OWN IDEAS VERSUS 

LOOKING WITHOUT BIAS 

FOR FACTS. 

"Say," said the sales manager to the junior vice- 
president, who, as you will remember, is our me- 
chanical expert and the fellow to whom we all go 
to really find out what we know about our own ap- 
pliances, "we are in bad on that machine we shipped 
out to — railway shop two months ago." 

"What's the matter?" asked the junior vice- 
president. 

"Why, the Master Mechanic says the blame ma- 
chine won't do the work. He has kept a careful 
record and had good men on it, and he says the facts 
in the case are that it won't do more than half what 
we claimed for it." 

"I have found," said the president, "through 
years of experience, that a man can generally prove 
what he wants to see proven." 

"That's just it exactly," said the junior vice- 
president. "That fellow never believed that our 
machine was any good and he has certain ideas that 
he wants to believe, his mind is not open to facts, 
and he is unable to judge of anything without a 
certain amount of bias." 

(275) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



"Well," I remarked, "it takes a pretty big man 
to look for the facts, and with an open mind. We 
are all of us more or less prone to look for some- 
thing to prove our own preconceived notions on 
any subject. We put ourselves in a position gen- 
erally of attempting to bolster up something that 
we believe and we are very apt to believe it without 
any special reason. I don't know just why this is 
so common a trait in human beings generally, and 
an argument with a man to change his belief, and 
an unreasoning belief at that, is only apt to set him 
still more firmly in his convictions. It is one of the 
hard problems that a salesman has to meet, and 
meet continually." 

"You can't argue a man out of his biased or 
prejudiced notions; you have to tease him out of 
them," said the sales manager, "or make him be- 
lieve that what he is doing is what he wants to do 
when it really is not." 

"In regard to this special case," said the junior 
vice-president, "this Master Mechanic is dead 
wrong and we know it because we have a good 
many of those machines out. It was only last 
month that I was in another shop and with the 
foreman spent a good deal of time going over his 
records in regard to our machines, and watching 
some of the actual work done. Now this foreman 
was really biased in favor of our machine and 

(276) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

thought they were doing things that they really 
don't do. He was going just as far the other way 
as this case that the sales manager reports, was 
going in the opposite direction. Now to take the 
record from the shop where they are pleased with 
our machine and show it to the Master Mechanic 
who thinks our machine is no good, would simply 
get us in bad and make this Master Mechanic even 
more determined to prove that he is right and we 
are wrong." 

"Well, Mr. Autocrat, suppose you tell us what 
to do in this special instance," said the president. 

"He can't," said the sales manager, "he is no 
salesman and that is what the situation requires." 

"Thank you," I said to the sales manager, "but 
as long as the president has requested me to give 
my opinion I am going to give it. I will admit that 
I am not a salesman and we only have one member 
of this organization who is entitled to such a degree, 
but out of my ignorance and inexperience I am go- 
ing to venture a suggestion and that is this. Find 
out from this Master Mechanic just what his objec- 
tions are." 

"Oh, he thinks he knows how to build the ma- 
chine himself," said the junior vice-president. 

"All right," I replied, "let us build one according 
to his design and specifications. That will flatter 
him and ought to flatter him enough so that he will 

(277) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



keep the first machine we sold him, and we can sell 
him another and probably make a larger profit on 
it than we would ordinarily make." 

"Is that doing right by the railroad?" said the 
senior vice-president. 

"Yes, I think it is, because we are educating this 
Master Mechanic so that he will be worth some- 
thing to the railroad before we get through with 
him." 

"You think, then," said the treasurer, "after we 
have educated him he will stop attempting to prove 
his own ideas and look simply for facts, and without 
bias." 

"Well, I think we can get him started in that di- 
rection," I said, "but I would hate to guarantee 
getting any man to make the whole trip." 









(278) 



XLIIL 
VACATIONS. 

"You see that old fellow sitting down there at 
that table," said the senior vice-president to me yes- 
terday at lunch. 

I admitted that I did. 

"How old would you think he is?" 

"Well, he looks about ninety-five, but I guess he 
is not over seventy." 

"Fifty-one last birthday," said the senior vice- 
president. "Just one year younger to a day than I 
am," he added. 

"Well, what is there about him especially?" I 
asked. 

"Just this — he makes a boast that he has never 
taken a vacation." 

"Well, he looks it, and he ought to keep still 
about it." 

"Keep still about what?" asked the sales man- 
ager. 

"Keep still if you never take a vacation," I re- 
plied, and told him what the senior vice-president 
had been telling me. 

"I am just in the mood," said the president, as 
he finished his lunch, "of hearing the autocrat give 

(279) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



us a little talk on vacations. We are all of us go- 
ing to take a vacation down at Atlantic City." 

"Vacation?" fairly howled the sales manager. 
"You don't call going to the Conventions being a 
vacation, do you?" 

The sales manager's face showed such evident 
signs of disgust that the president laughed, and we 
all joined in. 

"Well, I will take back what I said about the 
Conventions being a vacation if you will let the 
autocrat tell us what he thinks about vacations." 

"Do you know," I said, "it is getting to be some- 
thing of a strain on me to feel that I have to make 
an after-dinner speech every day after I get 
through with luncheon." 

"1 guess it would be more of a strain on you," 
said the president, "if we didn't allow you to talk, 
so go ahead." 

"We are all of us acquainted with the man who 
never takes a vacation. He is making monej r , too, 
— a whole lot more than we are. He is the kind of 
fellow who by the time we think of getting up in 
the morning has been down at his office and at work 
for an hour. In addition to doing other important 
things, he has opened all the mail by himself, and 
saved the envelopes for scrap paper. He has prob- 
ably in the course of a lifetime saved three or four 
hundred dollars by his care in these small things. 

(280) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

He is economical in other ways too. When you go 
to call on him you alwaj^s tell him that you do not 
smoke. You don't, either, — that is, the kind of 
cigars he will offer you. The chances are he won't 
offer you one. 

"Still, I think men of this class are getting less 
common. Golf has broken up the anti-vacation 
habit to a certain extent; yet an occasional after- 
noon playing golf is not a vacation. It must be 
granted that it is a rather hard matter for some 
men to take vacations. I can see how, in the 
strenuous life of railroading, it is pretty hard for a 
man to get away. 

"I am not a railroad man, and never have accus- 
tomed myself to getting my relaxation from a hard 
day's work by sitting up and working two-thirds of 
the night, nor by working three hundred sixty-five 
days and nights in the year ; and some railroad men 
have been caught trying to work in extra leap years 
when no one was looking. But a railroad man can 
do all this, and does do it. He probably has to do 
it in order that the railway management can keep 
the income a little over the outgo, so that the direc- 
tors can declare dividends at the end of the year. 
Possibly we have formed the habit of thinking that 
railroading is something like war ; a certain number 
of men have to be killed off anyway. The only dif- 
ference is that in a battle it isn't the general who 

(281) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



gets killed or wounded, but the fellow out on the 
firing line, while in railroading the higher the of- 
ficial, the harder the work, — the greater the respon- 
sibility and worry, — and it's the worry that kills. 

"Away from the railroad, and way away from it, 
back into the virgin forest, not for one day, but for 
a number, is the place for the railroad man to go for 
his vacation. It's a good place for any man, but it's 
the best place for the railroad man, because he needs 
it most. You can't get a good vacation in a hurry, 
nor without some expense. 

"What the railroad companies ought to want 
from the men who are operating our railroads is 
maximum efficiency, and you can't get this from a 
constant, never-ending, night and day and Sunday 
service, every moment of the time. The unimpor- 
tant routine things and details can be taken care of 
without any very great expenditure of vital energy. 
But at crucial times, when emergencies come, we 
need to be in the best physical condition and in pos- 
session of all our mental faculties. It's the vacation 
that puts a man in this condition and keeps him 
there. It's the vacation that runs him through the 
year and enables him to successfully meet any 
emergency. If everything went along smoothly, 
and if our daily life was that of our grandfathers, 
who worked the farm in the summer and relaxed 
all through the long winter months, a vacation 

(282) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

would be unnecessary. If we ran our trains the 
way we did three generations ago, traveling at the 
speed of the stage coach, we wouldn't need a real, 
twentieth century vacation, — but we don't. We are 
traveling faster today in every way than ever be- 
fore, and we are constantly spending a lot of time 
and money in figuring out how we can increase that 
speed. We need to relax." 

"The autocrat has put up a first class argument," 
said the president, "and on the strength of that he is 
entitled to whatever vacation he thinks he ought to 
have." 

"All right," I said, "I am going to ship my car 
down into New York state when I go to the Con- 
ventions, and then when the 'Big Show' is over, I 
am going to start on a trip through that state, and 
go to every place where I ever lived or visited when 
I was a small boy." 

"That's a sign you are getting old," said the 
president, "if you want to go back to scenes of your 
early childhood." 

"All right," I said, "but I am going to do it just 
the same." 



(283) 



XLIV. 
CONVENTIONS— THE HOTEL PORCH. 

"Well, does our booth look all right?" inquired 
the junior vice-president. 

"It looks fine," said the president, "and you are 
to be complimented on the taste which you have 
shown in arranging it, and the care which you have 
taken in displaying our appliances, which of course 
is the main thing that we are here for." 

We are all of us too busy to see much of each 
other at meal time, but we did have a talk one even- 
ing, and there was an old-time railroad man with 
us. He got to telling of some of the old days that 
went back, — before Saratoga or Old Point Com- 
fort, and we got to talking a good deal about the ex- 
hibits and how they have grown, and what impor- 
tant features they had come to be at our Mechani- 
cal Conventions. 

"I have come to feel that we really get more out 
of our exhibits," said the railroad man, "and from 
a lot of our little discussions on the porch than we 
do in the Convention Hall. It is the actual rubbing 
of elbows after all that counts the most. We can 
read the papers presented and the reports of the 
discussions, but it is all rather cold and uninterest- 

(284) 






AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

in the reading as compared with actually being in 
it." 

"Don't you think," our president asked the rail- 
road man, "that the big value after all is in the fact 
that the railroad man and the railway supply man 
come to a better understanding and appreciation of 
each other because of these Conventions, and, al- 
though we are on opposite sides of the fence, we are 
both working for the same end, viz: the constant 
improvement of railway service. There are lots of 
little things, and big things too, that we get 
straightened out right on the hotel porch. I have 
often noticed as I have walked around from year to 
year and joined myself first to one group and then 
another, that in almost every instance the railway 
man and the railway supply man were talking to- 
gether earnestly and discussing seriously the prob- 
lems which are always uppermost in their minds." 

"I think," said the railroad man, "that the big- 
gest lift that we get during the year for the im- 
provement of railway service is right here at these 
Conventions. Of course, there is a value in the 
meetings at the Convention Hall; there is some- 
thing decidedly worth while in the exhibits; but 
after all, the big thing is the better understanding 
and the spirit of co-operation which grows out of 
these annual meetings. We have come now, be- 
cause of the years that we have been getting to- 

(285) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



gether, to the time when we have traditions, and 
when any organization or any group has traditions, 
they are the better for them. I think there are 
many men in both the railway and the railway sup- 
ply end that form a part of the big family, for it is 
a family. Of course, we gain to our family circle 
more than we lose from it. The group, however, 
has the same spirit, — the same idea, — the mutual 
helpfulness that it has always had. The old per- 
sonalities are lost, but the effect of their work re- 
mains. Newer personalities are coming in, imbib- 
ing the spirit of those who have built up railroading, 
and now in turn they are doing their part. I feel 
that most of my work is done in connection with our 
Mechanical Associations, and I am glad to see the 
younger men stepping in and carrying on the work 
in which I have had a part." 

"Don't you get a whole lot out of these Conven- 
tions," asked the president, "from meeting other 
railroad men, as well as the railway supply men?" 

"I most certainly do," he replied. "It is the com- 
paring of experiences that is the biggest help to 
railroading. Of course, what will work out suc- 
cessfully on one road may not on another, but, in a 
general way, our perplexities and problems are 
much the same. It is true that we get these ans- 
wered very largely in the proceedings of our asso- 
ciations, but we have to go further than that, and it 

(286) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

is the making and comparing of notes, one indi- 
vidual with another, that gives each one of us a tre- 
mendous help and an impetus for another year." 

The little party broke up, and the senior vice- 
president and myself started out at midnight for 
a ride of the entire length of the board-walk. What 
we discussed would lead us so far away from what 
naturally belongs in these discussions that neces- 
sarily it must be omitted. Here in a word is what 
the senior vice-president told me he saw in our Con- 
ventions ; he believes that the greatest good in them 
is the growth of the spirit of co-operation. He 
contends that when co-operation is practiced to its 
fullest extent in all things pertaining to life, as 
well as business life, that we will then have reached 
the millenium. Of course that is a long way off, 
but certainly co-operation is going to be a big help 
in hastening that time. 



(287) 



XLV. 

VALUE IN EDUCATING ALL CLASSES 
OF RAILWAY MEN. 

We have a young fellow in the office — we took 
him out of the shop last year because he seemed 
to be a pretty promising fellow. It has always 
been the policy of the president never to hire any- 
one outside, if he could help it, but to continually 
build up from within his own organization, draw- 
ing from the bottom and pushing men toward the 
top. His name came up the other day at luncheon 
when the sales manager brought up the point that 
so many of the railway employees seem to be en- 
tirely ignorant, not only of the appliances that we 
are selling, but of the appliances that are being sold 
by other supply concerns. 

"Can't we have some young fellow to go out and 
visit the shops, and be an educator?" asked the sales 
manager of the president. 

"Can we afford to spend the money to educate 
railroad men?" queried the senior vice-president. 

"It seems to me," I said, "that we cannot afford 
not to educate them so far as our own product is 
concerned." 

"Why?" asked the president. 

That meant that I was in again for my usual 

(288) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

luncheon dissertation, which I don't mind if I can 
get through before the heavy work begins. As I 
was only half way through eating, I begged off 
from the president until I could get my cigar 
lighted, so when I had come to that part of the meal, 
which, by the way, is the pleasantest part of it after 
all, I began on the subject in hand. 

Before repeating what I said I want to make a 
feeble protest against the custom of having the 
waiter strike the match for the man who is going 
to smoke the cigar. Of course, other people can do 
as they please, but I hate to be waited on at every 
turn. But more than that, and so far as the cigar 
is concerned, I like to hold it for a minute or two 
in contemplation of the pleasure of smoking it. I 
like to leisurely strike my own match, watching it 
burn for a second or two, then holding it just where 
I want it before I begin drawing on the cigar. If 
we keep on the way we are going we will wind up 
by smoking cigars by machinery. 

I knew the sales manager was violently opposed 
to this idea of mine and not wanting to stir up any 
unnecessary strife, I didn't mention what I thought, 
but as to the value of educating all classes of rail- 
way men I said to the president, in reply to his 
question, "one of the most important things for us 
— in fact for most railway supply manufacturers 
who are making good appliances — is to have those 

(289) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



same appliances intelligently used and the only way 
to guarantee intelligent use of our own product is 
for us to do the educational work. Our competi- 
tors are certainly not going to help railroad em- 
ployees to a better understanding of what we are 
selling. It would be only natural for them to help 
to a more thorough misunderstanding. There is 
no question but what we have lost business, not be- 
cause of the lack of merit in what we had already 
sold to a railroad, but because the men who used 
this meritorious article had not the knowledge of 
how it should be handled. One of our appliances 
is successful upon one railroad and starts a string 
of repeat orders, and on another railroad, after 
months of energetic work on the part of the sales 
department, we get in one appliance and that is as 
far as we ever get. I do not think there is any' 
answer to this but the fact that the men who used 
it handled it without any intelligent conception of 
just what should be done with it. Of course, rail- 
way employees know in a general way what all ap- 
pliances are for, but we could hardly expect to 
spend years in developing something, the develop- 
ment work being done by high class and high paid 
men, and then expect this same appliance to be used 
to advantage by ordinary day laborers. 

"Now that boy in the office, that we took out of 
the shop last fall, thoroughly understands what we 

(290) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

have ; he is bright and intelligent and ambitious and 
it wouldn't take him more than six months to a year 
to make a complete tour of the various shops and 
instruct two or three men at each division point as 
to just how to handle our appliances. I think the 
direct result of such work would be to give us repeat 
orders on the trial orders that we have placed. 
This would certainly be a much more economical 
and profitable way of getting new business than 
through our sales department." 

"I suppose you want to have the sales manager 
fired next," said the treasurer. 

"O, no, not at all. I want the sales manager or 
the sales department properly equipped, and the 
proper and necessary equipment of every sales de- 
partment is a man, or men, to do educational work 
among railway employees that have to make use of 
the appliances that the sales department sells." 



(291) 



XL VI. 
GROWTH OF LARGE CENTERS. 

"There was certainly some jam down the street 
when I came over," said the sales manager. "I 
don't know what we are going to do if everybody 
is going to keep crowding into the cities. We will 
have to double-deck the streets and travel in air 
ships if the thing keeps on." 

"You would be an advocate of the 'back to the 
farm' movement," said the junior vice-president, 
"if you should get into a crowd very often." 

"I wonder what the reason is," I remarked, "that 
is responsible for such a large and rapid growth of 
our cities." 

"There isn't any reason," said the sales manager, 
"just a lot of fool people come in here all the time 
when they might better stay out in the country." 

"Let me see — you were born in the country, 
weren't you? Do you call yourself one of those 
fool people?" I asked him. 

"Oh, well, I make a good living by coming to the 
city, and most of this crowd that tramples on you 
in the streets would make a better living if they 
stayed on the farms." 

"Yes, but they may have some other reason for 
coming here," I replied. "You know each indi- 

(292) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

vidual, just because of the way we are all consti- 
tuted, is continually seeking happiness. I don't say 
that they are seeking it in the right way, or that 
many of them find it, but they are seeking it never- 
theless and they have an idea that they can find it 
in the crowd. 

"Now, in the earliest days in the evolution of 
man, human beings lived pretty much alone and by 
themselves. The first signs of progress toward 
civilization was the grouping together of people, 
and the development of civilization seems to be of 
a necessity accompanied by this grouping together, 
and the further the progress, the more general the 
groupings, and the larger the groups." 

"All right, Mr. Autocrat, so much for the theory; 
now what have you to suggest?" asked the presi- 
dent. 

"A pretty big answer, isn't it?" I said laughing, 
"but I guess it will have to be answered sooner or 
later, because even if the growth of cities is a good 
thing, we cannot have too much of a good thing 
without having an unquestioned evil. It is a pretty 
big subject for a lunch table discussion, and I can 
only attempt to answer a small part of it, which I 
will be glad to do as soon as I get through with my 
pie." 

"Pie," said the senior vice-president. "What's 
the matter with shortcake?" 

(293) 



THE AUTOCRAT 



"Didn't have any today, and I don't know how 
good an answer I can give, nor how much in- 
spiration I can get out of pie. If I had had short- 
cake, I would be all right. Looking at it from the 
narrow viewpoint of our own business, has the time 
arrived when our own business, including in that 
the officers and employees of our own company, 
would be better off if we were not in a large 
city " 

"I see what the autocrat is driving at," said the 
sales manager, "and I am going back to the office. 
I'm going now before he transfers our plant to 
Podunk Valley, or some other equally obscure 
place. It is bad enough to have a plant thirty 
miles out in the country now." 

"If don't know that it will do the sales manager 
any good to remain," I replied. "He might just 
as well leave, but I want to say that I think the 
solution of the big city problem is going to be found 
in doing something similar to what we did in this 
business a few years ago when we moved the plant 
to a distance thirty miles from the city. We are 
on the line of one of the big railroad systems; we 
can make shipments promptly. We are in touch 
with the outside world through the telephone and 
the telegraph ; we are not far from the city by train, 
or even by automobile. We can keep in touch with 
what is going on and meet competition. The land 

(294) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

that we occupy we obtained at a much lower price 
than what we could get in a crowded center, and we 
are getting an immense advantage, I believe, from 
cheap land not alone for our plant and the interest 
charge which we save on investment, but we are 
getting cheap land for our employees. 

"If there is any one thing that is the curse of our 
civilization, it is the apartment buildings. An adult 
can stand it, but children should be brought up in 
the open. The children of our employees have all 
the advantages of outdoor life, good schools, and 
comfortable homes, which mean health and knowl- 
edge, the two important things which spell oppor- 
tunity for each individual. I cannot see any reason 
why hundreds of manufacturing plants in this city 
could not be picked up bodily and transferred out 
in the country, to the advantage of each individual 
business. The pendulum has swung far over to the 
side of the large industrial centers, and it is going 
to swing back, I believe, to the moderate sized in- 
dustrial centers, and greatly to the advantage of 
the business and the individual." 

"I think you are right on this," said the presi- 
dent, "and it is certainly complimentary to what 
we are doing in our own business." 



(295) 



XL VII. 

SOME WAR METHODS APPLIED TO 
BUSINESS. 

"Circumstances often force us to do things which 
we had heretofore considered impossible." 

This remark by the president opened our mid- 
day discussion. 

"Just what have you in mind?" I asked the presi- 
dent. 

"Well, a good many things," he replied, "but 
more particularly just this. Twenty years ago one 
of the indispensable equipments of the man who 
had anything to sell was his ability to be a tank. 
That "is, the man who could drink the most was the 
fellow who was supposed to be able to sell the most. 
Of course, that class of salesman is still with us, 
but some of the most successful salesmen that we 
have in the railway supply business manage to get 
along without this supposed help." 

"We ought to make it a war measure," suggested 
the senior vice-president, "and do what Russia has 
done. If the soldiers can fight better without booze, 
why can't we fight the commercial battle better that 
way?" 

"What do you think, Mr. Autocrat?" asked the 
president. "Here is your chance." 

(296) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

To tell the truth I had never thought very much 
about it, and the question was a little bit new to me, 
that is new in exactly the way that the president had 
brought it up. Personally I believe that in the 
working of the law of the "survival of the fittest," 
those who are fittest to survive and perpetuate the 
race of the future will be the ones that let alcohol 
alone. I said as much as this to the president and 
he remarked that I was generalizing in a very broad 
way and would I be more specific. 

"Well then," I said, "make it a concrete case. If 
a salesman who does drink can earn more money 
for this company than one who does not, that is the 
kind of a salesman you are going to hire and the 
one to whom you are going to pay a higher salary. 
This, of course, based on a purely business proposi- 
tion." 

"Would you advocate a nation-wide prohibition 
law?" broke in the treasurer. 

"I am rather inclined to think that I would," I 
replied, "but not, however, until the people are 
ready for it. The laws are of very little value un- 
less they are the expression of the will of the ma- 
jority. When they simply stand for the wishes and 
opinions of the minority they are not going to be 
lived up to and our laws should not be put upon the 
statute books in anticipation of public opinion, but 
as a result of this same opinion. This is so big a 

(297) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



subject, however, that we have got to hew pretty 
close to the line in our discussion if we are going to 
get anywhere. As to whether we should have a na- 
tional prohibition law or not, and when we should 
have it, is a pretty big question. What we can 
settle, however, is what shall be the attitude of this 
company in regard to the question. 

"Now just what is the situation? We are a cor- 
poration, manufacturing and selling equipment 
bought and used by the railroads, and made use of 
by them in a service very exacting in its demands. 
We cannot afford, and we do not have, men in our 
own shops who are at all given to the use of alco- 
holic stimulants, for the reason that they are not 
dependable, and we must make dependable ap- 
pliances. So far we can safely go. Now the rail- 
road systems to which we are selling are engaged in 
a somewhat hazardous occupation. Most constant 
care must be taken to insure protection to life and 
property. Just so fast as possible the railroads 
have been equipping their lines with safety devices 
of all kinds. The railroads have gone slow in this 
matter in order not to leap from the frying pan into 
the fire, — that is, they have gone slow so that they 
will not be buying appliances that supposedly will 
protect life, but actually will not do so. They ap- 
preciate very well the fact that they might buy cer- 

(298) 



AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

tain kinds of signal apparatus that would make 
travel more dangerous, rather than more safe. 

"Now our customers, the railroads, have gone 
still further than this and have made some very 
drastic rules in regard to the use of alcohol by their 
employes. It has not been an ethical question with 
them — it has been a practical business question, a 
matter of dollars and cents. That is, a railroad can 
pay larger dividends if its employes do not drink 
than if they do. They have gone even beyond this 
question into the broader one which is so fully ex- 
pressed by the Safety First movement. 

"Now while I must admit that I can see where 
there are certain lines of business in which a sales- 
man who will buy a drink, or many of them, will 
probably do better than the man who is a teetotaler, 
it looks to me as though the time was not far distant, 
if it is not in the immediate present, when the sales- 
man for a railway supply company, as a matter of 
good business, will have to say 'I don't drink.' He 
works for a company that as a matter of good busi- 
ness policy refuses to hire an employee who is a 
user of alcohol, and he sells to the railroad corpora- 
tions who have really been the leaders in a move- 
ment which eventually must lead to a nation-wide 
prohibition law." 

"I think our autocrat has taken pretty good care 
of the subject," said the president. 

(299) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



"You bet he has/' said the sales manager, "and 
for once I agree with him, and I would give a year's 
salary if every saloon door in the country was bolted 
and barred and the whole business done away with." 

"Well, that time is coming," said the junior vice- 
president, "and as our autocrat puts it, not for 
ethical reasons but for business reasons pure and 
simple." 

"It only goes to show the tremendous power of 
business," said the treasurer. 



(300) 



XL VIII. 
THE RETURN OF THE PRESIDENT. 

The sales manager and the autocrat have forgot- 
ten their differences, and have come to a better ap- 
preciation and understanding of the valued friend- 
ship that exists between them. 

I cannot give the talk at the lunch table, because 
we have been having silence. There are times when 
silence is much more eloquent than speech. I think 
our little family group has drawn closer together 
in these last few days than ever before. 

Our president was called home by a telegram, 
telling of the serious illness of our shop superin- 
tendent. The illness was only a very brief one and 
"Bill" has joined the unseen majority. None of 
us ever knew our president as we have known him 
in the last week. I think it must be more than 
thirty years ago that our president established this 
business, and our shop superintendent was the first 
employee, and through all these years, a faithful 
and a loyal one. The business has grown from 
those days when the president and the shop superin- 
tendent both worked in their overalls up to the pres- 
ent time when our plants cover many acres of 
ground. 

I know many people think business is business, 

(301) 



"THE AUTOCRAT 



and I suppose it is, but friendships are formed in 
business that are lasting and permanent. We have 
had a fight in our business, — such a fight as comes 
to most business men, and our shop superintendent 
has been a good soldier. He saw long, hard service, 
and the president depended upon him as the gen- 
eral depends upon his veterans. "Bill" had his 
faults the same as you and I, but he had his virtues 
also. His faults were few, and they are now for- 
gotten, and his days and months and years of loyal 
service are remembered. Of course, someone will 
take his place in the shop. We have a good man 
trained and ready to step into his position. He will 
take his place so far as cold business is concerned, 
but the new shop superintendent is never going to 
take thfe place of the old one in the affection and 
esteem of the head of our organization. In the 
nature of things, it cannot be. 

As well as I knew our president, I know him 
better now. I have heard him criticized, — but by 
our competitors generally, or the friends of our com- 
petitors. He is known as a sharp, shrewd, level- 
headed, energetic, far-seeing, successful business 
man. Probably by the outside world that knows 
him, he will always be known and remembered as 
such, but to the little group that is gathered around 
our luncheon table he will be known in quite a dif- 
ferent way. It only goes to show what I have long 

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AT THE LUNCH TABLE" 

felt — that in the majority of instances, business men 
who make large success are men of large character. 
It takes something more than simply shrewdness to 
succeed and succeed permanently. 

I think we are all going to look at our business a 
little more wisely now for a while at least. It is 
not all of life to die ; neither is it all of life to give 
one's entire time and thought and energy to busi- 
ness. Business is not an end, — only a means to an 
end. The end is progress, — growth, — not of brick 
and mortar; not of machinery and inventions; not 
of literature and luxuries. The end of life is the 
development and growth of character. 

After we looked for the last time upon all that 
remained that is mortal of our shop superintendent, 
we came to a much fuller realization of the real 
meaning of life, and the small part played in it by 
business. 

It is only because of the very close and confiden- 
tial position that I maintain with our president that 
I know what is known by no one else, and that is 
that "Bill's" family are to be just as well provided 
for so far as money is concerned as if he had lived. 
The president looks upon it as simply being his 
duty — even more than this, his privilege. I would 
call it his generosity. 

THE END. 



(303) 



